The Journal Glut: Scientific Publications Out of Control

The proliferation of scholarly journals in the perilous “publish or perish” academic climate of the last 20 years has produced considerable concern recently, particularly among college and university librarians, who must figure out what to do with them. For example, on an average day the medical school library to which I have access receives 50 new journal issues, taking up a total of 2 ft. of shelf space. The main campus library subscribes to about twice as many journals, and a number of “specialty” libraries on campus have their own collections (math, agriculture, social sciences, and so on). Ten years ago, these figures were approximately half; that is, academic journals are increasing in size with a doubling time of about a decade. Thus, 10 years hence, the medical school library will be receiving 100 journals per day taking up 4 ft. of shelf space: Ten years after that, it will be 200 journals and 8 ft. of shelf space per day. If that doesn’t sound like a real serious problem, keep in mind that this scenario is being repeated at more than 2,500 United States institutions of higher learning and 10 times that many universities in the rest of the world. In other words, assuming that present trends continue, 20 years from now we can expect to be producing a million elf-feet of academic journals each day; 300 million ft. (60,000 miles) of new shelf space will need to be built that year just to house academic journals. To illustrate: In 1947 the journal Biochemica and Biophysica Acta consisted of a single volume occupying 1 1/2 in. of shelf space. In 1987, BBA, as it is known in chemistry circles, consisted of 43 volumes taking up 5 ft. of shelf space.. Biochemical Pharmacology’s first volume in 1958 had 350 pages; the 1987 offering contained more than 4,600 pages. Even when the size of one academic journal appears to level off, others spring up to take up the slack: The Biochemical Society Transactions came into being in 1973; Biochemical International in 1980. Both started out modestly, but now are adult sized. Thirty monthly and bimonthly periodicals devote themselves exclusively or primarily to blood, including Blood, Blut, Blood Cells, Blood Vessels, Haemostasis, Thrombosis. Haemostasis and Thrombosis. Thrombosis and Haemostasis, and Vox Sanguina. You could get a hernia just carrying afew months’ worth of these things around. The Science Citation Index keeps track of such things. In 1965, the Index recorded 9,432 issues of 1,146 journals. In 1986, it recorded 27,588 issues of 3,222 journals. At the same time that all this scholarly writing has flourished reading of academic journals has diminished, if not in absolute numbers, at least relatively speaking. The student population of U.S. colleges has not increased significantly, nor have faculty numbers grown in the last decade, during which, as noted already, learned journals have doubled. Thus, the readers-per-article ratio has decreased by at least 50%. Some courageous editors of academic journals attempt to stem the tide of excessive writing by refusing to publish new ideas, which doesn’t necessarily reduce the volume of academic literature, but does make it somewhat easier to keep up with what is in your field of endeavor. Authors who actually have stumbled onto something new can easily leapfrog this vexing problem by merely submitting their research results here: One person’s news is someone s old potatoes. Persistence will invariably pay off in publishing or perishing. Besides, experimental repetition and paper rewriting in order to satisfy some editorial constraints force consumption of material and labor, thus stimulation in the national economy. The sensible thing would be TO produce fewer, high-quality academic journals. But a lot of heavy-weight academics now have a vested interest in journal proliferation (it does provide real jobs for publishers, printers, editors, and so on; it helps inflate CYs—and the accompanying egos; it serves as an objective measure of accomplishment at high school class reunions), so it is unlikely that the tsunami of scholarly papers will diminish in the near future. Electronic technology being what it is, with any important articles on microfilm and so forth, we face a glut ofjournals. I offer now a modest list of proposals for disposing of this glut of unused academic journals. (1)Construction material. Your average academic journal has an R value equal to the same thickness of fiberglass. It can also be bonded to others and formed into beams and shingles. A friend of mine built an entire 2,000-sq. ft. house from old issues of The Journal of Biological Chemistry. When covered with a polyethylene film, this house is an air- and water-tight domicile for this learned gentleman. (2)Substitute for firewood. Your average academic journal has BTUs equal to the same volume of wood. Of course, many of them are printed on slick paper and thus could be used only in properly vented wood stoves. (3)Weapons. I read recently that the US. now possesses 10 tons of explosives for every person in the world, meaning that we no longer have to set the bomb off in order for them to be effective: We can just fly overhead, drop the payload without triggering it, and squash our ene- mies. I am certain that a year’s worth of The Journal of Pediatric Oncology or The New England Journal of Medicine could be equally effective. (4) An exciting new game. Be the first to find Smith’s article on the effects of neutrinos generated by supernova 1987A on pregnant women and win a free trip to the Argonne National Laboratory. (5) Pothole fillers, booster chairs,. shims, fans, fly swatters. (6) The American Medical Association has noted the effectiveness of single issues of their journal, when rolled up and properly positioned, in relieving lower back pain, especially when driving. It is more resilient than newspaper in restoring curvature to the lumbar spine, and does not spoil clothes with black ink. (7) Perhaps periodicals could be made with edible fibers. (8) Reading a few pages of The Proceedings of the National Acad-emy of Sciences can cure anyone’s insomnia, and it is a whole lot less addictive than drugs. No doubt others will be able to produce more uses for scholarly publications. Naturally, I am doing my best to contribute to this plethora of academic writing, and I’m grateful that this essay is being published, even if not in an academic format. Hey, I want to do my part to stimulate the economy. Jeffrey B. Moran is a researcher in the department of medicine at the University of Missouri, Columbia, School of Medicine.

The Journal Glut: Scientific Publications Out of Control

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