Message from the Grassroots

Librarians have responded to the decades-long “serials crisis” with a common narrative and a range of responses that have failed to challenge the ideology and structures that caused it. Using Walter Rodney’s theory of a guerilla intellectual, we critically examine the dominant understanding of this so-called crisis and emphasize the role that capital plays within it. The imperial nature of scholarly journal publishing and some of its many contradictions are discussed. “Transformative” agreements receive special attention as a hyper-capitalist manifestation of these contradictions at the heart of commercial publishing.The politics of refusal are one response to the commercialism, prestige, and power imbalances that drive the academic publishing system. Highlighting the differences between refusal and reform, this paper explores the protagonistic role that librarians can play in a protracted struggle within and beyond the confines of our profession. Select open access efforts are identified at the end as examples of different forms of refusal. This paper is intended to move beyond the traditional discourse of laying blame solely at the feet of the academic publishing oligopoly and also expounds on the bourgeois academy’s use of knowledge production for capital accumulation.

SynBio: A Progressive Open Access Journal Publishing New Horizons in the Synthetic Biology

It is my pleasure to inaugurate the new open access journal, SynBio (ISSN: 2673-9259) [...]

Publishing accessible content on OJS and beyond

Open Journal Systems (OJS) was released in 2001 and has since become the most widely used open-source journal publishing platform in existence, with over 25,000 journals using it worldwide. Over the past few years, the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), its creator, has been working on improving accessibility of the platform, including the release of the first accessible Default theme in OJS 3.3. This presentation will go over the accessibility improvements made to day and those planned ahead. Making the platform accessible is only half the battle however as it is often the published content that presents barriers to readers. Creating resources for editors and authors to improve content accessibility – in OJS and beyond – is one of the goals of the PKP Accessibility Interest Group (AIG), a community initiative established in 2020. We will highlight the work of the group and the resources it makes available to the public. This overview is presented on behalf of the PKP AIG.

Journal packing density of library and information science research journals at the global level: a study

Purpose This study aims to find out the average journal packing density (JPD) of Library and Information Science (LIS) research journals published across the world. The concept, JPD, means the average number of research articles published by a research journal in one volume. Accordingly, the undergoing study evaluates the average number of research articles published in each volume of each research journal published in the field of LIS at the global level. Some other key aspects evaluated include the number of LIS research journal publishing countries, average JPD of LIS research journals at the continental level, etc. Design/methodology/approach This study is purely based on secondary data retrieved from SCImago, which is SCOPUS data. Keeping in view the objectives of this study, the data about research articles published in all LIS research journals during the period 2015 through 2019 were retrieved to undertake the study. Findings From the data analysis, it emerged that 256 research journals duly indexed by SCOPUS are published in the field of LIS across 36 countries. In all 48,596 research articles were published from 2015 to 2019 in these research journals at an average of 44.71 research articles per journal per volume. More than 75% of LIS research journals are published from Germany, Spain, Netherlands, the USA and the UK. Research journals published from the USA have higher JPD of 53.09 research articles per journal per volume, which is 18.74% higher than the average global JPD of LIS research journals. 50% of LIS research journal publishing countries are from Europe and the majority 52.55% LIS research articles were published in European LIS research journals. The average JPD of LIS research journals published from North America is 51.73 research articles per journal per volume, which is the highest across continents. Research limitations/implications Standardization of JPD of research journals irrespective of the subject discipline they are published in is important for many reasons and the foremost being, such standardization helps in keeping at bay the predatory research journals, which normally float such packing density norms, with the sole aim to earn money in the shape of manuscript handling charges, thereby publishing a far greater number of research article in each issue of a journal than the average research articles published by a research journal. Originality/value Very few studies have been conducted around the concept JPD, especially by the authors of this particular study. This study has however been particularized to the LIS subject discipline, while the findings add to existing lot of study already undertaken, hence outcome can be generalized.