Archetype

New open access journal in Evolutionary Biology

I received some word about an upcoming  open access journal called Trends in Evolutionary Biology.

I have to confess that by the journal’s name and cover design I initially thought, with excitement, that it was a new open access experiment by Cell Press, publisher of the high-end and successful family of “Trends” journals. I was particularly intrigued since Cell Press already publishes Trends in Ecology and Evolution or TREE as it is called inside the cool geek¹ circle of evolutionary biologists.

It turns out to be a journal published by PAGEPress, located in Pavian, Italy. PAGEPress seem to be starting a whole series of titles in medicine and biology.

The journal description is a little odd though:

Trends in Evolutionary Biology is a new Open Access journal concerned with the origin of species from a common descent and descent of species, as well as their modifcation[sic], multiplication and diversity over time.

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Tags: Open access

Open access is good for us

A paper published in today’s Science Magazine¹ shows that citation of scientific papers increases as journals switch to allow free and unrestrictive access of their content online. This seemingly intuitive result becomes interesting when paired with the observation that open access has a great positive impact in developing world participation in global science.

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Tags: antbase.org, Donat Agosti, Open access

The worst hangover I ever had

I did my undergraduate studies in Biology at UNAM in Mexico City. While this institution holds the best science libraries in the country, there was always the odd paper I couldn’t find, especially when it came to insect taxonomy with its plethora of obscure journals. Add to this that electronic journals had yet to come into existence (it’s not that I am old, they are really a very recent phenomenon).

Back then, getting papers in the subject of one’s interest consisted in meticulously thumbing  through the heavy telephone books for animals called Zoological Records*, writing down some potentially useful references, and filling a petition for copies at a special place in campus that dealt with international inter-library loans. After that, you only had to wait a couple of weeks to get photocopies of some papers that were not quite what you were looking for. It felt like I was doing some serious research nevertheless. › Continue reading

Tags: Open access