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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.<BR>
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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, <B>and that list is limited to open access journals</B>.<BR>
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<A HREF="http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.ca/2012/07/alphabetical-list-of-open-access.html">http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.ca/2012/07/alphabetical-list-of-open-access.html</A> <BR>
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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).<BR>
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Conclusion: scholarly journal publishing is a lot more complex than what is provided by most scientometric studies.<BR>
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And a final question: who is advantaged by the illusory simplicity of the publishing landscape?<BR>
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Jean-Claude Guédon
Professeur titulaire
Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal
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