News
American Astronomical Society (AAS)
Publications Board Meeting
Marlene Cummins
The latest meeting took place in Chicago on November 22-23, 1996. As always, the agenda was very long. There were more attendees this time too, mainly due to an expanded scientific editorial board for the ApJ.
ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL (AJ)
Plans are well underway for full production of the electronic version of the AJ. PDF files are in hand now and will be available online by February (for issues from January 1996). HTML files will be mounted later in the spring. The electronic version will be available on a subscription only basis starting in January 1998. (The price increase will probably be smaller than the one that was necessary for the ApJ.)
The number of pages published in 1995 was more than was planned for and since then successful efforts have been made to shorten articles.
Submissions to the AJ now may be made in WORD and WORDPERFECT (with a kit) as well as AASTex.
Improvements are being made to the AJ's web page, e.g. the capability for an author to track the progress of his/her paper, and information about International Astronomical Union (IAU) nomenclature specifications.
A 20 year index will soon be published. It may be sold separately.
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL (ApJ)
The ApJ is all set for full online production starting in January. The site license was discussed and approved. The principles driving it were outlined: to protect the integrity of the publication and to generate enough revenue to offset costs, primarily through the prevention of republication. Some words about prices- as before, personal subscriptions will be revenue neutral (i.e. the price charged will be the same as the marginal cost of producing that copy. Institutional subscriptions and page charges pay the cost of producing the "first copy".) The electronic version will be bundled with the print. One can buy extra print subscriptions at a reduced rate or an electronic only subscription, also at a reduced rate. There is a little bonus- if you currently subscribe to the ApJ but not the Supplement, you will be given electronic access to both. On the other hand, there is of course a price increase. Only part of this price increase is to cover the development of the electronic version. Some of it is just a "regular" increase to cover higher costs in other areas. For example, a whole slew of scientific editors have been added. They will lighten the load on the Editor-in-Chief and improve the whole process but there are administrative costs associated with them.
The license had already been revised according to suggestions solicited from, and given by, me and others before the meeting began. Some minor changes to clarify meaning were suggested and the license is now ready to be distributed. There will be a grace period, in which you may have access to the electronic version while the site license is being processed by your institution.
It is hoped that next year, an HTML version of the articles in the LETTERS will be mounted 10 days after acceptance, well ahead of the issue publication. Other enhancements are being considered, for example, personal subscribers may be offered an alerting service, for a fee.
The AAS prefers to avoid consortia licensing at this time, but would, if pressed, consider such an arrangement- for an appropriate fee of course. Much discussion centred around the transfer of the office of the Editor-in-Chief, from Helmut Abt at KPNO to Paul Joss at MIT, that will take place next September. This is a complicated process and will involve (naturally) some changes in procedures to accommodate and take advantage of electronic production.
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
There were more papers and more foreign papers submitted than previously. More foreign referees were used. These latter developments are the result of improved international email access.
Recently the submission-to-publication time was shortened even more, as a result of the electronic version.
AAS BULLETIN
I am happy to report that the number of observatory reports coming into the Bulletin has remained steady.
The suggestion was made to discontinue the software reports which appear in the BAAS. That information usually is available on the web, in conference volumes (e.g. ADASS) or the other journals. The suggestion was accepted.
GENERAL PUBLISHING ISSUES
All the journals report higher electronic submission rates.
Discussions are underway for setting up mirror sites in Europe and Australia.
Discussions are also taking place with publishers of other astronomy journals to cooperate in terms of archiving, interoperability and a U.S. mirror site.
The AAS is going to participate in the Illinois Digital Library project to test a system allowing interoperation of a remote depository of manuscripts. The AAS's contribution will be valuable because of its unique remote archive of SGML manuscripts. This indicates the success of the approach of AAS in using open systems and in storing the manuscripts in SGML format.
More evidence for the success of this approach can be found in the fact that the online versions (of all issues) have been twice upgraded to reflect a newer version of HTML. This is possible because the HTML is generated from the SGML archives. It is possible for multiple HTML versions to be offered simultaneously and in future this service may be offered.
In the last year a lot of effort has been put into improving the capabilities of the electronic versions, developing production processes, reducing time to publication, improving editorial processes, and into outreach to the library and publishing communities.
Last year I told you that the translation journals would be the first of AIP's to go online. Alas, it appears that Astronomy Reports and Astronomy Letters will not be among those- they may not go electronic at all. The Russian company Interperiodica which produces the English version (AIP prints and distributes them) appears to have no interest in development along those lines.
The pub board recommend that CD-ROMs no longer be produced, after 1997. The data is available on-line. (Note that CD-ROMs are not an acceptable archival medium and that the AAS is currently taking a financial loss on their production.)
The board also recommended that a disclaimer (explaining the purpose of the list and the status of the papers) be added to the "Papers submitted to selected astronomical publications" (formerly the "Yellow Pages") and that a chronological cutoff be set before which everything is removed from the database (e.g. nothing in the database would be older than say, 18 months). The exact age was left to the discretion of the editors.
Plans (including a history book) are being made for the AAS centennial in 1999.
More information about some of these developments can be found in various issues of the AAS newsletter. For example, the AAS fiscal report can be found in the August issue. Plans for the centennial can be found on p.4 of the October issue.
Respectfully submitted,
Marlene Cummins
Astronomy Library, University of Toronto
AAS Publication Board Librarian Representative