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In their very own words: authors and scholarly journal publishing
Author(s) -
Nicholas David,
Jamali M. Hamid R.,
Huntington Paul,
Rowlands Ian
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
learned publishing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.06
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1741-4857
pISSN - 0953-1513
DOI - 10.1087/0953151054636228
Subject(s) - publishing , feeling , order (exchange) , association (psychology) , electronic publishing , sociology , media studies , public relations , computer science , library science , social science , psychology , world wide web , political science , law , social psychology , business , the internet , finance , psychotherapist
This paper presents the results of a major investigation by questionnaire of author attitudes towards scholarly publishing, which was funded by the Publisher's Association. Altogether, the views of nearly 4,000 authors were obtained and this paper concerns just those thousand or so authors who accepted the invitation to write freely about their own personal feelings and experiences. Using QSR N6 textual analysis software, their comments were processed and themes extracted. While the rest of the questionnaire, which was formed of closed‐question, tick‐box type questions, clearly must have had some impact on their thinking, the authors had considerable latitude in regard to what they could say. The paper provides a unique opportunity to hear their views directly. The pressing topics turned out to be (in rough order of concern): the peer‐review system, copyright, journal prices, alternative business models for journal publishing, big deals, Elsevier, electronic publishing and digital journals.