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The Future of Physics Publications in the American Physical Society

The Future of Physics Publications in the American Physical Society. Stewart C. Loken Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Some Background. In 1988 the APS formed a Task Force on Electronic Information Systems to make recommendations on the future of APS journals

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The Future of Physics Publications in the American Physical Society

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  1. The Future of Physics Publications in the American Physical Society Stewart C. Loken Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  2. Some Background • In 1988 the APS formed a Task Force on Electronic Information Systems to make recommendations on the future of APS journals • The report of this group predates the Eprint Archive or the Web but anticipates an electronic library of science • The APS convened a new task force in 2000 to revisit these issues and make new recommendations

  3. What Changed in 10 Years • Eprints • The World Wide Web • Networking infrastructure • Electronic Journals

  4. What did not change • Document preparation • Support for multimedia and other features

  5. The Eprint Archive • Introduced in August 1991 by Paul Ginsparg at Los Alamos • Now a major forum for results in physics and mathematics • Archive works in parallel with traditional refereed journals • Most papers are submitted to journals • Archive now located at Cornell with new funding

  6. HEP Submission

  7. Cond-Mat Submission

  8. Astro-Ph Submission

  9. Monthly Submission

  10. Submissions by Domain 25910: edu = US Educational (25.5%) 11703: de = Germany (11.5%) 6282: uk = United Kingdom (6.2%) 6199: it = Italy (6.1%) 5752: jp = Japan (5.7%) 4973: fr = France (4.9%) 3468: gov = US Government (3.4%) 3118: ch = Switzerland (3.1%) 2953: ru = Russian Federation (2.9%) 2676: es = Spain (2.6%) 2225: in = India (2.2%) 2120: ca = Canada (2.1%) 2019: br = Brazil (2.0%) 1755: il = Israel (1.7%) 1728: nl = Netherlands (1.7%)

  11. Electronic Publishing by APS & AIP • All APS journals are now online, as are AIP • Electronic version is now the first and definitive version • Archive maintained in two parts: • Current journals (OJPS) • Journals more than 4 years old (PROLA) • Pricing restructured to reflect electronic journals • Online-only • Multi-tiered pricing pricing reflects expected usage

  12. APS Archives • AIP delivers • Postscript files • PDF files • SGML files • high-resolution TIFF images for scanned figures • Low-resolution TIFF and JPEG • All are loaded into electronic archive

  13. APS Archives • Beacon delivers • Print and online PDF files • SGML • Encapsulated Postscript for figures • These and the AIP data constitute the APS archive outside of PROLA • PDF and Postscript are a reasonable format to treat as ‘archival’ • The mixture if SGML (with evolving DTDs) is not suitable for long-term archive

  14. PROLA Archives • Physical Review Online Archive goal was to put all APS journals online • From July 1997, journals had PDF and SGML for archive • 1985-1996 scanned at 300 dpi , with XML derived from AIP’s SPIN SGML • Earlier journals scanned to give 600 dpi b/w TIFF, 200 dpi JPEG figures and XML • PROLA now provides access to all journals back to 1893 • 1985-1996 are being rescanned at higher resolution

  15. PROLA Subscriptions • Starting in January 2001, 1997 material was converted to PDF for PROLA use • Each year, another year will be moved into PROLA • APS offers a single subscription to PROLA • Also bundled with any single current journal

  16. New Journals / New Models • Subscription model under pressure for some time as subscriptions decreased • APS has explored new models • Physical Review Special Topics Accelerators and Beams funded by accelerator laboratories • Virtual journals provide access to articles in a specialized field from all journals (AIP journals in biophysics and nanotechnology)

  17. Other Initiatives • CrossRef involves 65 publishers to make easier reference linking • Promotes use of Digital Object Identifiers • Needs system to map citation information into DOIs • STIX seeks to ensure that mathematical content can be displayed in future browsers • Includes APS, AIP, AMS, ACS, IEEE and Elsevier • Open Archives Initiative

  18. Role of Scientific Journals • Journals provide a basis for archiving • Refereeing process provides formal verification of paper content • Publication is an important credential for review of author • Editorial process makes manuscript clearer and more readable

  19. Logic of Eprints • Submitting paper makes it very widely accessible • Papers are not refereed but are widely used by scientists • Abuses prevented by the openness and the archive time-stamp • Use of the archive varies widely by field

  20. Link to Physical Review • APS has cooperated with the eprint archive • APS hosted first mirror in the U.S. • Allows submission to Physical Review by giving reference to archive with additional metadata • Some commercial journals (e.g. Nuclear Physics) have adopted a similar policy

  21. Journals and Peer Review • Though we embrace eprints, we propose retaining peer review • A sanity check from outside immediate circle • Selection of most important papers for reader’s attention • Provides a credential for evaluation in promotion or funding

  22. Journals and Readability • Journals seek to improve readability of papers • Part achieved by clarifying arguments and presentation • Part into editorial redaction and typesetting • Latter is essentially obsolete with present computer tools

  23. Eprints and Archiving • One benefit of editorial redaction is to assure that papers can be recovered many years after publication • Eprints provides papers in whatever form the author provides as long as they meet standards • Best choice for archive is an open and well-accepted standard • For today, the choice appears to be PDF

  24. Review Literature • Review journals play an important role in physics • Detailed scholarly reviews • Pedagogical articles for new people in field • Brief articles aimed at a wide audience • These are less likely to be submitted to eprint archive • Editors need to seek out authors to prepare reviews and assist them to complete them

  25. Other Literature • Conference proceedings including rapporteur talks and other papers • Technical reports from current and future projects (e.g. DOE’s PubScience) • Databases that bring together experimental data and references (e.g. Particle Data Group) • Presentations, lecture notes and computer programs (often on personal web sites)

  26. Why are Journals Needed? • Eprint archive alters the rationale for existance of scientific journals • Peer review is an essential part of process and may be the primary role of journals • Role of journals in distributing and archiving science is less clear

  27. Searching the Literature • Two tiers of service • Commercial: INSPEC, Web of Science • Field-specific: SPIRES, ADS • Quantity of bibliographic information will increase • We expect that use of eprints will grow • There will be the potential to search all of the physics literature

  28. Cross References • Desirable to link immediately to all references in a bibliography • Potentially, the search engine can provide links to eprint, refereed version, references and links to papers citing it • The challenge is the creation of uniformly computable DOIs to address the desired electronic versions

  29. APS Information Services • We assume that all physics communications distributed as preprints in automated server • APS provides those aspects that cannot be made automatic • Peer review • Soliciting review articles • Managing search engine • Archiving of APS journals

  30. Financial Models • Three models discussed • Pay-per-view • Site license • Publication charge • We advocate that APS move to a model where author pays a charge for the reviewing of a paper • Charge independent of acceptance

  31. Culture Shift • Over the past 20 years, physicists have been resistant to payment of publication charges • In the 1980’s, high energy physicists moved from Physical Review D to Nuclear Physics to avoid page charges • This move was independent of the higher cost to libraries

  32. First Steps for APS • Encourage the use of eprints across the physics community • Define archive strategy taking into account the eprint servers • De-emphasize editorial redaction • Adopt tools to reduce authoring efforts • Introduce refereeing charge

  33. Conclusions • These are times of rapid change in scientific communication • The APS and other professional societies are moving into an era when electronic communication is the dominant form • This change will dictate a new role for the journals and new models of funding

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