[GOAL] Title not found: room for improvement in maintaining access to content when journals cease

[Heather Morrison]

Some open access journal publishers and services may not have much experience in the complexities of keeping track of journals and articles as journals change over time. The purpose of this post is to highlight the loss of ready access that occurs when a journal ceases publication and is removed from DOAJ, and sometimes from the publisher’s website as well. It is understandable that DOAJ wishes to focus on and encourage active open access journals, however removing content when journals cease is a disservice to readers and authors alike.

Recommendations

Authors: always post a copy of your article in an open access archive, even if you have published in an open access journal.

Open access journal publishers: if a title ceases to exist, do not remove the title from your website (unless it had no articles at all). If the journal has changed title, add a link to help the reader make the connection. If the title has ceased, include a note to that effect.

DOAJ: indicate that journals have ceased rather than removing them from DOAJ. Include a field to indicate whether journals are active or not. There is an “end date” in DOAJ which seems like a good candidate to use for that purpose.

Examples of title not found

These titles were on the Libertas Academica website in 2014, but have disappeared as of May 2015:

  *   Cell Biology Insights
  *   Clinical Medical Insights: Dermatology
  *   Immunotherapy Insights
  *   Particle Physics Insights

This message is the entire content of this blogpost on the Sustaining the Knowledge Commons blog:
http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/05/15/title-not-found-room-for-improvement-in-maintaining-access-to-articles-when-journals-disappear/

best,

--
Dr. Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa
Desmarais 111-02
613-562-5800 ext. 7634
Sustaining the Knowledge Commons: Open Access Scholarship
http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/
http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca<mailto:Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca>


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