[Taxacom] Zootaxa Re: Monbiot editorial on academic publishing

[Geoff Read]

What Michael has incidentally raised is the issue websites and web
services have of how to provide user-friendly linking to Zootaxa articles,
because Zootaxa does not have the conventional web page per article with
abstract and author address & file links, and thus Zootaxa has chosen not
to pay for the DOI service to get the user quickly there that almost every
other publisher uses.

If one links to the guaranteed free abstract pdf then it will only open a
deadend one-page file - no web links to follow to get back to the main
article - which might just be open access. This is frustrating & an odd
practice.

The way I've started to deal with linking to Zootaxa from a WoRMS source
page is to link only to the level of the issue webpage which has a simple
url like http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/list/2011/3010.html

That will not be a deadend. But it's less than ideal & there is an extra
step for me to get to & confirm that link.

I also point out that some sort of download citation mechanism is mighty
useful, and would increase article citations for authors - but Zootaxa is
again a maverick in not providing that either.

Geoff


On Wed, August 31, 2011 7:40 am, Michael Heads wrote:
> Hi Neal,
>  
> My mistake. If you Google scholar Zootaxa 2011, for most of the articles
> you get a message 'The server www.mapress.com at Protected requires a
> username and password'. But if you go to their website you do get the
> abstract and email addresses. Maybe they would make more money if
> they sorted out the problem.
>  
> Anyway, the very important points raised by Monbiot still stand, of
> course. And, again, it is the academics who referee these journals who are
> to blame.
>  
> Michael 
>  
> Wellington, New Zealand.
>  
> PS. If you find my grammar tricky, it's probably best not to bother with
> William Shakespeare, or even William Faulkner.
>
>
> My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0
>
> From: Neal Evenhuis <neale at bishopmuseum.org>
> To: Michael Heads <michael.heads at yahoo.com>; iczn-em <iczn-em at nhm.ac.uk>
> Cc: taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, 31 August 2011 7:09 AM
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Monbiot editorial on academic publishing
>
> I had to re-read this before I understood the tricky grammar used by
> Michael.
>
> Michael is probably correct. There might be journals "like" Zootaxa that
> do not give abstracts or emails of authors for free, but Zootaxa DOES -
> for every single issue they have published!
>
> So, Michael, please list the journals that are "like" Zootaxa that don't
> -- so we know.