Print and Online Publishing: Future Trends
(About.com) As a corollary; can you talk about your "joint print/online publishing" venture? Are you getting positive response from the print journals?(Judith Winters) We have always been open to publishing electronic versions of printed articles/books - the advantages being that there is less restriction on length, more possibilities for indexing, cross-referencing, colour images etc. But we do not see this solely as another delivery method, but rather wish for the electronic version to complement the print, enhancing and linking up with data, which is something that appears to be increasingly appealing for publishers.
IA has now published 3-4 articles that also appeared in some form in print. For example: Paul Tyers and Allan Peacey's articles in issue 1, David Dungworth issue 2, The West Heslerton Assessment edited by Dominic Powlesland in issue 5. All these articles were enhanced with features that simply could not occur in print, such as datasets that could be queried online and map/distribution searches. The response so far (from the albeit small number of publishers who have been involved) has been favourable, although for one article in the pipeline at the minute, it has forced the journal in question to re-think their editorial policy.
How so? Do you mean the journal might accept papers which have been published electronically first?
It's the other way around actually. The (fairly traditional) print journal has already published an article, the topic of which the authors would like to republish partially with virtual 'additions' alongside previously unpublished material in IA. The journal’s editors are concerned about how much it would be similar to the already published print version (answer: not very), but mostly concerned about whether the e-equivalent publication would have a negative impact on their journal (will it reduce demand for the print/will IA be competing with them in some way). In our view, what the author is proposing is not actually a threat at all. E-versions of already published articles have tended to push up the demand for the print version rather than reduce it. I am still waiting for the answer on this, but the journal seems to be willing to experiment and use this case as a basis to establish a policy for the future.
It's new and relatively unchartered territory for us all and there is little precedent, although incidentally (and I forgot to mention this), the Royal Archaeological Institute has recently agreed to a "parallel" Archaeological Journal/Internet Archaeology publication i.e. very same text with IA publishing the ecxavation’s datasets and the colour pictures.
Internet Archaeology has a subscriber base of nearly 26,000 individuals, and is published twice annually, although articles are accepted and published at varying times throughout the publishing cycle. Content is presented from any region in the world and from any period; there are no restrictions on length of article, and the writing style may be for an academic, governmental office, or general public audience.
