Dimapur, Oct. 30 (EMN): The Naga Scholars’ Association (NSA) organised a special lecture on ‘Scholarly Journals: Changing Landscape’ on Oct. 28 at School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.
President NSA Dr. Zuchamo Yanthan briefly introduced the activities and vision of NSA to the gathering.
The resource person was Dr. G Mahesh, senior principal scientist at NISCAIR, New Delhi who is also associated with several international and national journals in different capacities and has been a resource person at different universities across India.
The session was chaired by Prof. Jaideep Sharma, a professor of Library and Information Science, IGNOU, New Delhi. Prof. Jaideep as several books to his credit and is one of the most sought after professors in the discipline of library and information science across India.
As per the release, the special lecture discussed the emerging of the many formats of scholarly journals that have come into being since the turn of the century. Journal, as a scholarly mode of communication is now 350 years old. It has grown and evolved over the period of time. We also witness vast change in content, access, medium, user needs, and access to journals.
Dr. Mahesh spoke on the role of NISCAIR in scientific communication, which publishes 18 popular periodicals of high standing in academic circles. Discussing the evolution of journals, Dr. Mahesh said as official organs and as medium of exchange for research among researchers and institutions, their publication started from societies and institutions. Later their publication was taken over by publishing houses resulting into increasing the cost of journals.
He informed that the concept of ‘Open Access Journals’ is a recent phenomena which is meant to overcome the costs of journals in order to benefit the scholarly community and the payment for these journals are either borne by authors or their institutions.
The speaker also gave insights on different characteristics in publications in ‘Open Access Journals’ such as: Published as Gold, Platinum, Delayed and Hybrid Open Access Journals.
He further shared about Mega Journal, Video Journal and Wiki Journal, which further gave birth to Data Journal. The latest in the development is a repository of papers from which journals will select and provide link in Overlay Journal.
The talk was followed by intense discussion and questions by participants
