News And Events (1^st July 2006)

Seminar on:
“E-Publishing & Global Promotion of Indian Publications”
on
1^st July, 2006, Auditorium, National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Vihar Lake, Mumbai

Concluding speech by Dr. Sukhdev Singh,
National Informatics Centre

Therefore, the conclusion from the panel discussion drawn, are as follows:

1. Electronic Journals cannot replace Print Journals – many reasons. How many articles they accept in printed form.
2. Quality of Indian Journals not bad – disputed by another speaker.
3. Local content is important, especially for the practitioners.
4. Content wise also, the same is important for academicians, researchers and practitioners.
5. Suggestions – Advertisements on website so that people can know the articles.
6. Another issue, which was raised was Publishers and Librarians – they work for common goal. Difficulty of Indian Journals – publications are not on time. Perhaps the e-publications do away the print publications.
7. Cost – Library budgets are sinking. Focus on ownership to the accessibility.
8. For E-journals, especially in the Indian context, collaboration is must for Publishers and Librarians.
9. Publishers View – As per one experience, the pressure in publishing is either publish or perish.
10. Due to this pressure, authors' expectations with the journal are not of the same scope.
11. Publication loop gets started but perish after 2-3 years, which discourages author to publish new journals. This lacks trust among the authors.
12. Reasons for delays in publication are : Editors are not professionals and their point of thinking is that this is not their bread and butter and merely a part of their responsibility.
13. Indian Publication Quality – One member disputed - said slightly lower.
14. Need for Regional Hubs.
15. E-publishing not to take over print at least for next ten years.
16. Common Observation – No or very few Social Sciences journals as compared to Technical Journals.
17. In Social Sciences, there are more books as compared to journals.
18. One speaker insisted quality should be improved and promotion will come automatically.
19. We lack collaboration among various disciplines we are not able to provide, which are not available online.
20. One quoted instances on LIS emails, response was not good.
21. Authors will benefit if their publications are online.
22. Aggregators have to play a key role and can also help in other areas like others will have better acceptability and the end-users will have the resources to search. Finally the speaker asked why Devanagari script is not there on Indianjournals.com. Such things can be done.

Dr. Sukhdev Singh
Bibliographic Informatics Division,
Nationational Informatics Centre,
A-Block, CGO Complex Lodhi Road,
New Delhi – 110003.

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