Open Access journals in Library and Information Science

Objective:

To find out the present availability of OA journals in the LIS discipline.

Introduction

The Open Access (OA) e-journals in Library and Information Science (LIS) began to be published in the mid-1990s but they were very few up to the year 2000. But since then they have been growing exponentially and new journals are being added to the list almost every day. Simultaneously, a number of earlier price-based publications have also entered into the Open Access arena by changing their access policy. So it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of Open Access e-journals at this point. The most comprehensive online directory, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), listed only 35 e-journals under the Library and Information Science category in March 2005, while in December 2006 this number touched 68 and in December 2008 there were 96 journals in this directory. It has therefore trebled within nearly three years. This phenomenal increase has been not so much due to the emergence of new publications as to the changed access policy of the publishers. Most publishers in this field are now trying to capture their market by providing some of their articles or issues free. Some have also put their back issues on the web for free. On the other hand, during the last few years some e-journals have suspended or ceased publication. They are: Cumulative Interactive (ISSN: 1471-3225), Exploit Interactive (ISSN: 1465-7511), Future of Print Media (1533-9270), International Journal of Special Libraries (ISSN: 0019-0217), Interpersonal Computing and Technology Journal (ISSN: 1064-4326), Journal of Digital Contents (ISSN: 1697-4735), MC-Journal (ISSN: 1069-6792), Public Access Computer Systems Review (ISSN: 1048-6542), The Journal of Library Service for Distance Education (ISSN: 1096-2123) and Transforming Traditional Libraries (ISSN: 1528-9494). One of the e-journals, the Journal of Electronic Publishing (ISSN: 1080-2711) remained suspended for four years from 2002 but again resumed its publication in 2006. Hawkins (2001) is of the opinion that it is easy to start an Open Access publication and even easier to close it down because there are no subscription liabilities to the publisher as no subscription charges are collected from the users. But such closure of OA journals, even though relatively small, is a matter of concern. In addition, as discussed earlier, due to the disappearance of e-journals over time many links become outdated, and the journal providers face the choice of maintaining accurate links or articles' bibliographies which are often contaminated with link rot. This may be the reason that most of the reputed publishers maintain their websites in spite of the suspension of their journals, e.g. Public Access Computer Systems Review.

Like priced journals, OA journals are also now available in pure electronic form and/or hybrid form: p + e or e-p. Table 2.1 includes 112 of such freely accessible e-journals that were available either only in electronic form or electronic as well as print form. Other types of publications - newsletters, non-refereed web-based magazines and the like - are not included in the list. This list, however, includes partial and delayed OA journals that were available in different languages and in different print and online directories up to December 2007, but excludes suspended or ceased e-journals. If e-journals did not have independent websites but were accessible freely they are included in the list. However, if an e-journal website was in an individual HTML 'frame' and all its articles had the same URL then the journal was excluded from this study. The title, ISSN, language of publication, commencing year, web address, their Top Level Distribution (TLD), and country of origin of these 112 OA journals are mentioned in the table.

Table 2.1

Open Access journals in Library and Information Science (as of December 2008)

From Table 2.1 it can be said that it is very difficult to calculate how many of these OA journals are particularly in the subject of Library Science or of Information and Library Science. With the increasing influence of computer technology in library science, a number of journals have emerged which deal with both these subjects simultaneously. E-journals like Computers in Libraries, Human-IT, Information Technology and Libraries, and the Journal of Digital Information are some examples. In addition, the increasing amount of interdisciplinary research in this field has also influenced most of the publishers to shift their area of interest from traditional librarianship to more specifically computer oriented issues in order to keep their users abreast of current needs. This paradigm shift might have influenced DAOJ to shift a journal like First Monday from the category of Library and Information Science to Computer Sciences.

Language distribution

Table 2.1 reveals that OA journals in LIS are now available in at least 12 different languages. Most of them are monolingual and only a few are bi- and multilingual. Among the 112 e-journals, 95 (84.82%) are monolingual, whereas only 10 (8.92%) are bilingual and 7 multilingual. Of the monolingual e-journals, most of the titles, i.e. 78 (82.10%), are published in the English language, followed by 5 each in Spanish and Portuguese and 2 each in German and French. Only 1 e-journal is published each in Arabic, Bulgarian, and Italian. In addition to that, in 8 bilingual and 7 multilingual e-journals, English is one of the languages. Most of these e-journals provide expressive titles and abstracts of the articles in English. This clearly indicates that English is the most widely accepted language for scholarly OA publications.

Top Level Domain distribution

The Top Level Domain (TLD) distribution of 112 OA journals can be visualized from the web address of these e-journals as mentioned in Table 2.1. Of these 112 the highest number, i.e. 39 (34.82%), are from an organizational (.org) domain followed by 24 (21.42%) from educational (.edu)/academic (.ac), 8 (7.14%) commercial (.com), 6 (5.35%) network (.net), and 2 (1.78%) governmental (.gov) domains. In addition, 33 (29.46%) e-journals are from a country specific domain; most of them are organizational in nature. From this TLD distribution it can be said that non-profit organizations and academic institutions are now playing an important role in LIS OA publishing. The active involvement of non-profit organizations and educational institutions in the OA arena might be a good indication of the future of OA publishing.

Space and time distribution

The wide spectrum of the country of origin of these 112 e-journals, as is evident from the Table 2.1, shows worldwide acceptance of OA publishing. There are 56 (50%) e-journals from the North American continent. This is followed by 40 (35.71%) from the European continent. Then there are 5 (4.46%) e-journals each from Asia and South America, 4 (3.57%) from Oceania and 2 (1.78%) from Africa. Out of the 56 North American publications, 50 are of United States origin, 4 are Canadian and 1 each is from Cuba and Mexico. Among European countries, 11 e-journals are from the United Kingdom, 9 from Spain, 5 from Germany, 4 from Portugal, 3 from France, 2 each from Sweden and the Netherlands, and 1 each from Bulgaria, Italy, Lithuania and Switzerland. In Asia, 2 e-journals are from China and 1 each from India, Iran and Turkey. The two South American countries Brazil and Peru are publishing 4 and 1 e-journals respectively. Further, 4 e-journals are from Australia and 1 each from Egypt and South Africa. From the above data it is evident that the concept of OA journals is much more popular and prevalent in the developed countries than in the developing countries. Chan (2008) argues that although authors from developing countries may not publish more in OA journals nor cite them more, OA journals should be ensured. In the future it may be expected that developing countries will take an important role in LIS OA publishing. In fact, today in developing countries it may be easier to establish an OA journal than a print journal.

Brief outline of selected Open Access journals

From the OA journals mentioned in the foregoing sections we will discuss 16 selected OA journals in detail. We chose these 16 by applying certain criteria. First, the e-journals must have been published in the English language only and also have one or more articles that reported the results of research or scholarship. These e-journals should be scholarly or refereed, as described in the e-journals' documentation. Second, the e-journals should have commenced their publication on or before 2000 and never ceased or suspended publication during 2000-2004. Third, the e-journals should be available only on the web and they should not have any print counterpart. Many e-journals were eliminated because they failed to meet the first criterion, a few were removed because of the absence of any statement in the documentation indicating that they were peer-reviewed or...