Scholarly Communication in Science and Engineering Research in Higher Education

Citation

Hurych, J. (2005), "Scholarly Communication in Science and Engineering Research in Higher Education", Collection Building, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 104-105. https://doi.org/10.1108/01604950510608320

A total of 12 articles written by librarians and science faculty deal with the current state of scholarly publishing in the sciences and engineering, with focus on academia. Some of the issues addressed are: peer review and quality control, electronic journals, digital repositories and digital archives, cost of journals and copyright. The articles also address new initiatives of independent scholarly publication outside mainstream publishers.

The book is divided into four interrelated sections. Articles in the first section discuss free access models in scientific publishing, offer valuable insights on consequences of the transition from traditional print media to digital media and present reasons for digital repositories. There are also articles dealing with special media, such as conference proceedings, theses and dissertations.

Articles in the second section discuss the role of scientific literature in electronic scholarly communication and its impact on librarians and scholars. They also express concerns about future retrieval systems. The third section focuses on the topic of digital archives, especially policies for electronic archives of journals. Another topic deals with the effect of digital media on users' expectations and users' information behaviour. Bibliometric analysis of citation data in electronic publishing, as well as a need for better bibliographic control, are discussed in the fourth section.

The papers are stimulating and thought‐provoking. They present accurately the crisis in scholarly publication and offer some possible solutions by exploring cost‐effective alternatives to traditional publication options. The book will be extremely valuable to academic libraries that are struggling with the rising costs of journals and diminishing budgets. It is also valuable reading for university faculty, researchers and publishers. This collection is highly recommended for all academic libraries.