Journal & journalogy

A journal is a form of publication. It is a periodical (usually with a frequency of more than one issue per  year).  

Usually is Journal des Sçavants, founded in Paris in 1665, regarded the first journal.  It published extracts from new books and bibliography of new publications. The same year was the first scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions, published by Henry Oldenburg, secretary at the Royal Society of London.

"In the eighteenth century a wide spectrum of publication forms existed; they were not, however, specialized in any way. There were instructional handbooks at the university level, journals of a general scientific nature for a regional public interested in utility, and academy journals aiming at an international public, each covering a wide subject area but with rather limited communicative effects. It was only after 1780 that in France, in Germany, and finally, in England, nationwide journals with a specific orientation on such subjects as chemistry, physics, mineralogy, and philology appeared. In contrast to isolated precursors in previous decades, these journals were able to exist for longer periods exactly because they brought together a community of authors. These authors accepted the specialization chosen by the journal; but at the same time they continually modified this specialization by the cumulative effect of their published articles. Thus the status of the scientific publication changed. It now represented the only communicative form by which, at the macro level of the system of science―defined originally by national but later by supranational networks―communication complexes specialized along disciplinary lines could be bound together and persist in the long run (Stichweh 1984, Chap. 6, Bazerman 1988)" (Stichweh, 2001, p. 13728).

Before the establishing of journals was the current communication between the scientific societies and academies based on personal correspondence. Books were seen as the final form of communication, but were too slow to produce (cf., Kronick, 1962). The limitations of letters in scientific communication was not primarily there limited distribution. The problem was primarily that during their circulation appeared chances for plagiarism, "philosophical theft", distortions and delay in the elimination of wrong results.

Heine Andersen writes:

"The scientific specialized and collectively watched journals may be seen as the institutional innovation, which rectify these malfunctions. The journal do this thanks to their recognized positions, honesty, universalism and quality of evaluation  and judgment by which they can provide research results a kind of autorizsation and ensure the author the intellectual rights.

    Gradually was the institutional settings extended and standardized to the system, as we know it today, in particular in the sciences, with fixed procedures for editiorial boards, advisory editorial boards, referees, subject specialization. standardization of article composition etc." (Andersen,  1988, p. 187-188).

Structure and Elements in a Typical Scientific Article

(From Hjørland, 1997, p. 23).

From a Library and Information Science (LIS) point of view journals represent primary literature. LIS is interested in journals as a part of the overall scientific and scholarly communication system (see UNISIST model of information dissemination). The name "journalogy" has been suggested for the study of journals (see also editors).

Literature:

Andersen, H. (1988). Publiceringspraksis og organisationsformer i danske samfundsvidenskaber. Politica, 20(2), 185-201.

Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activiity of the Experimental Article in Science. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI

Bruhns, S. (1993). Journalologi. Pp. 230-240 IN: Ud over grænserne. Ålborg: Biblioteksarbejde.

 
Gleditsch, N. P.; Enckell, P. H. & Burchardt, J. (eds.) (1994). Det vitenskapelige tidsskrift. København: Nordisk Ministerråd. (TemaNord 1994:574).

Greco, A. N.; Wharton, R. M.; Estelami, H. & Jones, R .F. (2006). The state of scholarly journal publishing: 1981-2000. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 37(3), 155-214.

Hjørland, B. (1997). Information Seeking and Subject Representation. An Activity-theoretical approach to Information Science. Westport & London: Greenwood Press. 

Kronick, D. A. (1962). A History of Scientific and Technical Periodicals: The Origins and Development of the Scientific and Technological Press, 1665-1790. New York: Scarecrow Press.

Lindsey, D. (1978). The scientific publication system in social science. A study of the operation of leading professional journals in psychology, sociology and social work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Lock, S. P. (1989). "Journalogy": are the quotes needed? CBE Views 12(4):57-9. Reprinted in Current Contents, 1990, #3, 21-24. (With an introduction by Eugene Garfield, pp.19-21). http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v13p019y1990.pdf

Malmquist, J.-E. (1992). Tidsskriftiana. En skrift om tidskrifter. Stockholm: Statens kulturråd. 
 

Malmquist, J.-E. (1992). Gediget arbete. Handbok i tidsskrifthantering på bibliotek. Stockholm: Statens kulturråd. (Rapport 1992:1).

Morris, S. (2006). When is a journal not a journal? A closer look at the DOAJ [Directory of open Access Journals]. Learned Publishing, 19(1), 73-76.

Oster, S. (1980). The Optimal Order for Submitting Manuscripts. American Economic Review, 70(3), 444-448.

Page, G., Campbell, R. & Meadows, A. J. (1997). Journal Publishing.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Quinton, A. (1995). Journals of Philosophy  IN: Honderich, T. (ed.): The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. (Pp. 431-432).

Regier, W. G.; English, J. F.; Hanson, D. C. & Regier, W. G. (2005). Journals as Innovators and the Innovation of Journals: The Council  of Editors of Learned Journals Keynote Addresses MLA Convention 2004. Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 37(1), 1-18.
 

Smith, A. P. (2000). The journal as an overlay on preprint databases. Learned Publishing, 13(1), 43-48.

Stichweh, R. (1984). Zur Entstehung des Modernen Systems Wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen―Physik in Deutschland 1740-1890. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
 

Stichweh, R. (2001). Scientific Disciplines, History of. IN: Smelser, N. J. & Baltes, P. B. (eds.). International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Oxford: Elsevier Science (pp. 13727-13731).
 

Stieg, M. F. (1986). The  origin  and  development  of scholarly  historical  periodicals. University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press. 

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Bibliography of journals:

Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory. New York: Bowker, Ed. 1- ,1932- .

http://library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/bl0480.html

Journal on journals:

Serials. The Journal of the United Kingdom Serials Group. Bradford, UK: United Kingdom Serials Group, Vol. 1-, 1988-.
 

http://www.uark.edu/depts/histinfo/history/CHJ/

See also: Electronic journal;

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 01-06-2006

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to be edited:

Donovan (2006) Abstract: The libraries of universities and other research institutions are
    home to an abundance of academic journals, published in multifarious
    sizes, thicknesses, languages, and formats, with covers varying from
    black to psychedelic and covering every subject imaginable. More
    uniformity of format would favour the author, who would no longer have
    to tailor style to wherever the latest contribution is being submitted,
    but the current diversity of formats is aimed at the reader. Long may
    it so remain.
 
 
Greco et al. (2006) Abstract: Scholarly journals play a substantive, role in the dissemination
    of knowledge among academics, and. university presses have been
    exceptionally active as journal publishers. But since 1981 a series of
    events has affected, and in some instance adversely affected, journal
    publishing.
         This article analyses data from the Institute for Scientific
    Information (ISI) regarding 1317 scholarly journals in 25 marker fields
    and addresses the following question: It has been alleged that it
    became difficult for academics in certain fields to get published in
    scholarly journals. Was there any decrease in the number of articles
    published in the 1317 journals analysed in this study?
         Other questions addressed in this paper include the following: What
    impact did the serials crisis have on university presses? Did the
    economics of journal publishing change between 1981 and 2000? What is
    the potential impact Of the 'open access' movement on scholarly
    communication?

Tidsskrifter findes i flere mediekate­gorier (f.eks. trykte tidsskrif­ter, tidsskrifter i mikro­former, fuld­tekstbaser online eller på cd-rom).
Alle litterære funk­tionskategori­er er repræsen­teret i tids­skriftsform (f.eks. afhandlings­lit­teratur, over­sigtslittera­tur og biblio­grafi).

Typer af tidsskrifter er f.eks.
- Videnskabelige fagtidsskrifter (typisk afhandlingslitteratur)
- Kulturtidsskrifter
- Nyhedsorienterede fagtidsskrifter
- Populære fagtidsskrifter og "Magasiner"
- Anmeldelsestidsskrifter
- Forskningsoversigter ("Review journals")
- Løbende bibliografier
- Statistiske publikationer
- "News Letters"
- "Letter Journals"

The concept of "core journals" is related to Bradford's law of scattering.

Quinton (1995) omtaler de filosofiske tidsskrifters historie og udvikling. Han beskriver dem som lærdomshistoriens senest etablerede institutioner (de første var akademiet eller forskningsinstitutionen og biblioteket). Han konkluderer om tidsskrifterne:
"The great age of philosophical journals ran from around 1890 to 1960. Since then they have increasingly come to serve as platforms for budding philosophers, in an expanding and competitive profession, from which to call attention to themselves, rather than as a vehicles for the ideas of established leading figures".

Tidsskriftsartikler er betegnelse for de afhandlinger o.a. publiceret i form af artikler i tids­skrifter. Forskellige fag har forskellige informationsstrukturer, dvs. en forskellig fordeling af afhandlinger m.v. på forskellige publikationstyper. Tids­skrifts­­artiklernes opbygning kan være ret formaliseret, især indenfor natur­videnskab. Regler for udformning af artikler publiceres ofte af f.eks. faglige sammen­slutninger (eller i kort form på tidsskriftets omslag) (Jfr. "Publikationer, normative retnings­linier").
 

produce value-added information to representations of documents.