[GOAL] Number of Open Access journals

[Jean-Claude Guédon]

I have repeatedly criticized the numbers of journals used to describe
scientific and scholarly publishing in the world. I have also regularly
criticized the use of lists such as the Web of Science, Scopus and
Ulrich's as being largely centred on the North Atlantic and/or OECD
countries.As a counter to such numbers, I have pointed out that Latin
America alone, as indicated by the Latindex vetted list, can sport over
6,000 titles. Presumably, if Asia and Africa did the same kind of work,
numbers of 25-27,000 titles for the whole world would look funny.

Another way to look at this is through disciplines or study areas. No
one, I suspect, would argue that Classics (Latin and Greek) is a large
speciality in the world of learning. Typically, classics departments are
small and tend to disappear. Nonetheless, one can find a list of 1498
journal in this field, and that list is limited to open access journals.

http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.ca/2012/07/alphabetical-list-of-open-access.html 

The list dates from the summer of 2012. There may be a few more or a few
less since, but the least one may add is that such a number reveals a
publishing activity that reaches well beyond expectations (at least
mine).

Conclusion: scholarly journal publishing is a lot more complex than what
is provided by most scientometric studies.

And a final question: who is advantaged by the illusory simplicity of
the publishing landscape?
-- 

Jean-Claude Guédon
Professeur titulaire
Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal




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