Author Archives: Louise Deis

About Louise Deis

Science & Technology Reference Librarian Emerita Princeton University

American Physical Society offers Open Access option to authors

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” APS announces new alternative for Physical Review journal authors to pay article-processing charges – 16 Feb 2011

The American Physical Society has announced that as of February 15, 2011, authors in most Physical Review journals will have a new alternative to pay an article-processing charge whereby their accepted manuscripts will be available barrier-free and open access on publication. These manuscripts will be published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC-BY). The most permissive of the CC licenses, CC-BY grants authors and others the right to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work, provided that proper credit is given. This new alternative is in addition to traditional subscription-funded publication. Authors may choose one or the other for their accepted papers.

The new article-processing charges, which will cover all costs and provide a sustainable funding model, have been set at $1700 for papers in the Physical Review and $2700 for those in Physical Review Letters. The resulting open access articles will appear alongside and mixed in with subscription-funded articles, converting these journals into ‘hybrid’ open access journals. Revenue from the article-processing charges will decrease the need for subscription income and help to keep the APS subscription price-per-article among the lowest of any physics journals.

Also as of February 15, Physical Review Special Topics – Accelerators and Beams (PRST-AB) and Physical Review Special Topics – Physics Education Research (PRST-PER) will have their full archives and all future papers made available under the CC-BY license, thereby converting both of these journals to ‘gold’ open access journals. PRST-PER’s publication-charge scheme has been realigned with the new programme. PRST-AB will continue to be funded by its sponsors. Finally, APS’s Free to Read program will be phased out, and all of these papers covered by the CC-BY license.

These developments for existing APS journals follow the announcement in January of a new journal, Physical Review X (PRX), an online-only, fully open access, primary research journal covering all of physics and its applications to related fields.”

Source:  Knowledgespeak Newsletter 2/16/11

Cell Press wins “Article of the Future” Award

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 “Cell Press wins PROSE Award for Article of the Future – 09 Feb 2011

Cell Press, an imprint of STM publisher Elsevier, has announced that ‘Article of the Future’ is the recipient of this year’s PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences, presented by the Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

In January 2010, Cell Press launched a new format for the online presentation of research articles that breaks free from the restraints of hardcopy – ‘Article of the Future’. This new, more integrated and linked article format, allows each reader to create a personalised path through the article’s content based on his or her own interests and needs.

This year’s winners were determined by a distinguished panel of 16 PROSE judges, out of a record-breaking 491 entries – more than ever before in its 35-year history – from more than 60 professional and scholarly publishers across the country.

Developed in collaboration with authors and readers, ‘Article of the Future’ reflects Elsevier’s and Cell Press’ ongoing commitment to evolve the concept of a scientific publication in conjunction with the development of new technologies and functionalities.”

source:   Knowledgespeak Newsletter, Feb. 9, 2011

Science powerhouses around the globe

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“Globalizing Science” by Tom Price, Jan. 28, 2011

“Are traditional scientific powerhouses losing their edge?

The United States, Europe and Japan are beginning to lose their traditional dominance in science and technology – not because they are doing less, but because the rest of the world is doing more. China, India, Southeast Asia, South Korea and Taiwan have all increased their share of patents, scholarly scientific articles, research-and-development spending and researchers, while the share held by the United States, European nations and Japan has declined. As developing countries mount their own research enterprises, the world of high technology is being transformed. China last year unveiled the world’s fastest supercomputer, a distinction that had belonged to the United States and Japan. International scientific collaborations are on the upswing, Western universities are building branch campuses overseas, and multinational corporations are locating their research, development and high-tech manufacturing operations abroad. Most experts say traditional science powerhouses won’t be replaced anytime soon by rapidly developing countries such as India and China, however, in part because those countries’ educational systems don’t yet nurture innovation.”

Source:  CQ Global Researcher, CQ Researcher  Alert, 2/3/11 

Peer review — an inquiry by the UK’s House of Commons

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“The Science and Technology Committee in the UK’s House of Commons recently launched an inquiry into peer review. It invites evidence on the operation and effectiveness of the peer review process used to examine and validate scientific results and papers prior to publication.”

 

http://bit.ly/gY4eIS

 

From (CHMINF-L) Bill Town at Kilmorie.com

and from Knowledgespeak Newsletter 2/1/11

http://www.knowledgespeak.com/newsArchieveviewdtl.asp?pickUpID=12183&pickUpBatch=1619#12183

Bonnie Bassler is the recipient of the Richard Lounsbery Award

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Date:  Jan. 20, 2011

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Academy Honors 13 for Major Contributions to Science

 

WASHINGTON — The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will honor 13 individuals with awards recognizing extraordinary scientific achievements in the areas of biology, chemistry, physics, economics and psychology.

 

The recipients for 2011 are:

 

“Bonnie L. Bassler, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and Squibb Professor in the department of molecular biology at Princeton University, is the recipient of the Richard Lounsbery Award. Bassler is being honored for her pioneering discoveries of the universal use of chemical communication among bacteria and the elucidation of structural and regulatory mechanisms controlling bacterial assemblies. This $50,000 prize recognizes extraordinary scientific achievement by French and American scientists in biology and medicine.”

To see the whole list:

Source: What’s New @ The National Academies

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Open Access study in Europe shows ~10% of articles published in OA journals

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“ Study of Open Access Publishing project presents findings of two-year EC funded study on OA publishing – 17 Jan 2011

The SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing) project presented the results of its two-year European Commission (EU) funded examination of open access publishing at an open symposium on January 13, 2011, in Berlin, Germany. Over the two-year study duration, the SOAP project performed a comprehensive study of open access journals, publishers and business models, including analysis of publishing houses, learned societies and licensing along with the overall supply and demand for open access.

The study surveyed over 50,000 researchers for their opinions on open-access journals, which make all their papers freely available online and usually charge authors a fee for each published paper. According to the study, while scientists like open-access papers as readers, as authors, they are still skeptical. The study found overwhelming support for the concept, with 89 percent of respondents stating that open access is beneficial to their field. However, this support did not always translate into action, the study noted. While 53 percent of respondents said they had published at least one open-access article, overall only about 10 percent of papers are published in open access journals.

The study found two main reasons as to why researchers do not submit their work to open-access journals. About 40 percent said that a lack of funding for author fees was a deterrent, while 30 percent cited a lack of high-quality open-access journals in their field.

Requiring authors to make sure the results of their work are freely available has reportedly had only partial success. Robert Kiley, head of digital services at the Wellcome Trust’s Wellcome Library in London, said at the symposium that open-access rates had risen from 12 percent to 50 percent since the funder began requiring its grantees to publish in open-access journals or deposit their papers in a freely available repository. However, Kiley acknowledged that Wellcome Trust had not imposed sanctions on researchers who failed to comply.

The study also makes it clear that open-access journals are proliferating, especially among small publishers. It was observed that one-third of open-access papers were published by the more than 1600 open-access publishers that publish only a single journal. The study also identified 14 ‘large publishers’ that publish either more than 50 journals or more than 1000 articles per year. The group accounts for roughly one-third of open-access publications, the study noted.”

Source:  Knowledgespeak Newsletter, 1/17/11

Alternative Energy eTrack — new database at Princeton

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Alternative Energy eTrack    

“Statistical reports on alternative power sources including wind, hydro, solar, geothermal, bio, ocean, transportation biofuels, fuel cells along with energy storage, efficiency, and infrastructure; and carbon. Also includes electricity power prices.”
Emphasis is on business, markets & products, & news.
Source: Database steering committee & Bobray Bordelon
Text from the Library’s Articles & Databases listings.
 
 

2011 — International Year of Chemistry — see ACS Calendar

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“ACS launches online calendar to mark International Year of Chemistry – 04 Jan 2011

The American Chemical Society (ACS) began a global, year-long observance of the International Year of Chemistry 2011 (IYC 2011) by launching an online calendar that serves as a virtual time machine, transporting the public back to some of the epic events and great intellects that shaped modern society through the magic of chemistry.

Called 365: Chemistry for Life, the calendar links almost 250 days of the year to events – triumphal and trivial – in chemistry, health, medicine, energy, the environment and related fields. They range from January 1 – which in 1907 saw the debut of the database that has fostered unprecedented scientific discovery – to December 31 and a scientific law about those New Year’s toasts with champagne. A mouse-click on the days in between revisits Joseph Priestley’s discovery of oxygen; the first successful treatment of diabetes with insulin; George Washington Carver’s discovery of hundreds of new uses for crops like peanuts; Marie Curie’s landmark research on radioactivity and much more.

ACS will hold a contest during the first quarter of 2011 in which visitors to the site can suggest topics for grayed-out dates – or better topics for active dates. The contents of filled-in dates are mere suggestions and not necessarily the final word. Individuals whose topics are accepted for inclusion in the calendar will be eligible for a drawing with prizes that include an iPad, an iPod Touch and an iPod nano.

The 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry, envisioning a worldwide celebration of the achievements of chemistry and its contributions to the well-being of humankind. Also being celebrated in 2011 is the centennial of the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Marie Curie for her work on radioactivity, and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the International Association of Chemical Societies.”

Source: Knowledgespeak Newsletter