Are book publications disappearing from scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities?

Tim C.E Engels,Janne Pölönen,Gunnar Sivertsen,Andreja Istenič Starčič,Emanuel Kulczycki

doi:10.1108/ajim-05-2018-0127

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution in terms of shares of scholarly book publications in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in five European countries, i.e. Flanders (Belgium), Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia. In addition to aggregate results for the whole of the social sciences and the humanities, the authors focus on two well-established fields, namely, economics & business and history.Design/methodology/approachComprehensive coverage databases of SSH scholarly output have been set up in Flanders (VABB-SHW), Finland (VIRTA), Norway (NSI), Poland (PBN) and Slovenia (COBISS). These systems allow to trace the shares of monographs and book chapters among the total volume of scholarly publications in each of these countries.FindingsAs expected, the shares of scholarly monographs and book chapters in the humanities and in the social sciences differ considerably between fields of science and between the five countries studied. In economics & business and in history, the results show similar field-based variations as well as country variations. Most year-to-year and overall variation is rather limited. The data presented illustrate that book publishing is not disappearing from an SSH.Research limitations/implicationsThe results presented in this paper illustrate that the polish scholarly evaluation system has influenced scholarly publication patterns considerably, while in the other countries the variations are manifested only slightly. The authors conclude that generalizations like “performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) are bad for book publishing” are flawed. Research evaluation systems need to take book publishing fully into account because of the crucial epistemic and social roles it serves in an SSH.Originality/valueThe authors present data on monographs and book chapters from five comprehensive coverage databases in Europe and analyze the data in view of the debates regarding the perceived detrimental effects of research evaluation systems on scholarly book publishing. The authors show that there is little reason to suspect a dramatic decline of scholarly book publishing in an SSH.

Highlights

Publication patterns in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) are diverse
Shares are presented as they are calculated in the different national systems, meaning that for Norway the sum of the share of articles in journals and proceedings, book chapters and monographs is 100 percent, whereas in the four other countries the share of peer-reviewed edited volumes needs to be added in order to get the full picture
In this paper, we examine the shares of monographs and of book chapters among peer-reviewed publications in the humanities and in the social sciences for Flanders (Belgium), Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia

Summary

Introduction

Publication patterns in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) are diverse. In the SSH book publishing takes a prominent role, both in terms of communicating with international peers and with a broader intelligentsia (Basili and Lanzillo, 2018; Hicks, 2004; Verleysen and Engels, 2014). Harnad (1986), for example, advised against contributing chapters to edited volumes given the long delays that may occur in their publication process. Nederman (2005) warns that in academic evaluation contexts book chapters and edited volumes are hardly taken into account. The publication of a scholarly monograph is a requirement for professors to obtain tenure (Cronin and La Barre, 2004). In the field of history, for example, the publication of a monograph is considered a test of competency and of prestige, and a necessity in order to obtain tenure in the USA (Townsend, 2003). Systematic empirical information regarding the share of monographs and book chapters among scholarly publications is scantly available, complicating the interpretation of perceived evolutions, if any

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion