End of the line for print journals?
Are the days of print journals numbered — and if they are, what will that mean for how we interact with the scientific literature? These questions are asked in Nature Chemistry‘s September Editorial (1, 421; 2009). The Editorial is sparked by The American Chemical Society’s announcement that, with the exception of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and two review journals, “ACS titles publishing primary research will be printed in a landscape fashion that puts two article pages side-by-side on a single physical page. These changes are accompanied by new pricing schemes that will eliminate discounts for hardcopy journals, while offering subscribers incentives to upgrade from print to digital formats.” This is inevitably seen by several observers as a precursor to eliminating the print editions of these journals. Read more