Details
- There should be an official agreement to protect interests of
both the club and the sponsor (Harvard MCZ or library).
The sponsor would be given
explicit permission to publish the journal and to control its format
and content. The club would be guaranteed that should
the publisher drop
the ball, the use of the Psyche 'trademark' reverts to the
club and the club would be free to continue publication on its own.
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In order to receive a grant or gift, or to enter into
agreements with individuals or instutitions, it may become
desirable or necessary for the
Entomological Club to (re-)incorporate
and obtain IRS 501(c)3 status. (The Club was incorporated for
this purpose in 1876 but the corporation was dissolved by the
Commonwealth in 1966 due to failure to file annual reports for
ninety years.)
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For species descriptions the ICZN
requires deposition of print copies in some number of
libraries. Even if there is no regular print version of the
journal, it is still easy to print and send out the paper copies
as required by ICZN; this is what JIS does.
- Most electronic journals publish files as
PDF.
JIS (and Science and many others) additionally
provide articles as HTML, which some find easier to view online.
For frugality I would favor PDF-only publication, as long as there
is some convenient way to include hyperlinks (to
electronic supporting materials and to web versions of cited
articles).
- No matter what medium is chosen for publication,
the journal can require that authors submit manuscripts in
electronic form (perhaps even demand a standard form such as RTF).
It could then optionally allow other forms if
the author is willing to pay
for the additional processing required.
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The journal may choose to subsidize or waive page charges for
those for whom payment is an unreasonable burden
(e.g. Harvard graduate students).
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Psyche formerly participated in exchange agreements
with a number of other journals, providing the MCZ library with
many 'free' subscriptions. (I don't know what the economics were for
this - was there any accounting for the donation of these copies
of Psyche to the library?)
Since Psyche is no longer
publishing, these agreements have long since dried up.
If Psyche is revived in subscription form, perhaps
the agreements could be
revived as well.
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In the past, Psyche was indexed by Agricola and
possibly by Biosis. This can certainly continue, and
other indexes canbe recruited.
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Although the club's inventory of back issues of Psyche was
largely destroyed last year, one complete set was reserved for
the purpose of digitizing (scanning). I don't know whether plans
have been made to do so, or even who would be responsible for
doing so. If Psyche became part of PubMed Central,
it might be able to participate in
PMC's scanning initiative.
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I am not assuming any integration between Psyche on-line
content and the Club's on-line content (which consists of static
pages plus a community site); integrating would be luxurious, but
is probably unlikely and undesirable if Psyche is
institutionally sponsored.
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Pricing trivia: Club dues in 1876 were $2; in 1974 they were $4.50;
in 1994 they were about $20. Psyche subscription was
always included.
Subscriptions for non-members were
$6 in 1974 and $30 in 1994. Club dues are currently $15
but this does not include Psyche subscription.
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Psyche might want to change its page size should it go
electronic, since most readers' computers' printers hold letter.
All past issues are in a 6.5-by-9 inch (approximately) format
with wide margins.
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Interesting information on scientific publishing in general:
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For historical information on Psyche and the Entomological
Club please read
Janice Matthews's entertaining
Ent Club history article (Psyche 18:3-37, 1974).
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