Journal Combat

Abstract

‘‘Publish or perish’’ is the time-honored ‘‘principle’’ that is drummed into all young academicians at the start of their careers and haunts their lives as they race to accumulate lines under the section ‘‘publications’’ on a curriculum vitae. Originally, the publication of scholarly activity was meant to inform others of findings and thereby further the knowledge of scientists generally. Unfortunately, that goal, which began in 1665 with the first scientific journal (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London), has been corrupted over the past half century. Many factors have contributed to this perversion, but major among them are (1) the exponential growth of journals and the journal industry, (2) the adoption of journal metrics as the measure of quality rather than the written content of the article, and (3) the intrusion of the Internet into all aspects of academic life. Until the second half of the 20th century, most of the important journals in what is now categorized as ‘‘science, technology, and medicine’’ (STM is the abbreviation used by the publishing industry) were the organs of major societies or associations and sometimes were even published by those organizations. To be an editor of such a publication was an honor (and generally unpaid or with only a minimal stipend to cover expenses) and manuscript submissions were reviewed by peers who gladly donated their time and expertise to assure the integrity of the publication. However, with the acceleration of technological innovation and scientific and medical discovery that marked the second half of the 20th century, journals through their advertising and subscription revenues became major sources of funding for many organizations. Smaller or developing organizations viewed journals as a means for sustaining financial viability, while at the same time, journals unaffiliated with any society or association proliferated exponentially. To maintain the original purpose of journals (to disseminate useful information for other scientists, engineers, or physicians) indexing was necessary for the growing volume of journal articles published annually. This resulted in 2 classes of journals: those that were indexed by major indexing services and those that were not indexed (more like ‘‘vanity’’ publishing, often with a ‘‘pay for publication’’ stratagem). For biomedical journals, indexing in the National Library of Medicine Index Medicus (or the digital version Medline, which is now PubMed) became the distinguishing characteristic of the important peer-reviewed journal. To be indexed by the National Library of Medicine, a publication undergoes evaluation by a panel of expert reviewers, who assess the quality of articles and the peer review process used by the journal, scientific stature of the editor and editorial board members, and timeliness of publication. With the increased revenues and competition accompanying journal proliferation, journal management became so complex that most journals were taken over by the large consolidated publishing companies, which could use consortium deals to assure circulation numbers and to capture the full capabilities of the Internet to disseminate materials. Libraries (and individual subscribers) have been overwhelmed with the sheer volume of material to be perused for useful content. With library budgets unable to sustain the costs of increasing numbers of journals and increasing journal subscription prices, librarians have looked for ways to limit the number of journal subscriptions. In 1955, Eugene Garfield, a library scientist and structural linguist from the University of Pennsylvania, had developed a metric that he termed impact factor to select journals for inclusion in his initial publication (Genetics Citation Index, which was the forerunner of his later Science Citation Index). This impact factor number calculated ‘‘based on 2 elements: the numerator, which is the number of citations in the current year to any items published in a journal in the previous 2 years, and the denominator, which is the number of substantive articles (source items) published in the same 2 years’’ seemed to be a reasonable measure for librarians navigating through budget crises to use in prioritizing their journal subscription lists. This led publishing companies to put greater emphasis on boosting journal impact factors in order to ensure continuing subscriptions. The resultant changes in editorial practices at many journals and the maneuvering by publishers to adjust article designations (to alter the numbers in the ratio used to calculate the impact factor) produced considerable