Is the policy of certain international journals publishing LIS articles by charging hefty amount from authors justifialbe

[Dr. Tarvinder Singh Handa]

Please discuss this point.........

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

 

 

Dear Sri Habda,

 

Thanks for your mail and the important issue you have raised. It is really a problem especially for a field like Library & Information Science because most of the institutes will not pay for publishing Library Science articles. Hhowever, this trend is continuing for certain publishers for a couple of decades as I know of. There is an extremely esteemed organization named American Society of Microbiology (ASM) They publish several frontline Biomedical Research Journal like Journal of Bactetiology, APplied & Environmental Microbiology, Antimicrobial Agents & Chemotherapy, Journal of Clinical Microbiology, Clinical Microbiology Review, Journal of Virology, Infection & Immunity etc. Practically all the Biomedical Research Institutes subscribe to these journals. They regularly ask for "Page charges" (on the basis of number of pages) for publication in those journals. Their point is that they have to accommodate the cost of publications as the costs of subscription are much lower. On the other hand, there are two organizations Federation of European Microbiological Associations (FEMS) and Federation of European Biochemicals Associations (FEBS) their journals too [ FEMS Microbiology Letters, FEMS Immunology Letters, FEBS Letters etc.] are extremely important for Biomedical Research. FEBS & FEMS journals are published and marketed by a Commercial Publisher and they charge quite high Subscription cost ( and they publish the FEBS & FEMS journals fortnightly) but they do not charge page charges or Reprint charges rather usually provide 50 free reprints for the Author.

 

My point is: Charging of publication charges is a practice mostly opted by Societies who themselves publish their journals of their own and usually keep low cost for the journal price. For your issue if you see that the cost is not worth paying or beyond capacity, you can approach for a subsidized rate and in many cases, the publishers grant such relief keeping in view the merit of the submitted article. Otherwise, withdraw it and publish elsewhere. But, make it sure to get your article withdrawn officially before publishing elsewhere.

 

Regards,

 

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta

[Dr. Tarvinder Singh Handa]

Thanks Dear S.S. Ray for contributing detailed discussion.

Its, realy very hard for under-paid librarians in pvt funded organizations to pay for their articles to be published in reputed journals.

[Siddhartha Shankar Ray]

 

 

Dear Sri Handa,

 

Don't loose heart, there is not much difference between private or Govt. funded institutes in this respect. As I believe, barring a few exception (like NISCARE or NISTADS of CSIR or DRTC of ISI) no research institute will ever agree to pay such charges for any publication by library professionals. They have a common one line justification " The institute is not engaged with Research on Library Science" to diffuse all your enthusiasm!!

 

Sincerely,

 

Siddhartha S. Ray, Calcutta