---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 18:16:46 +0200
From: Joanna Tousley-Escalante <J.Tousley@IAEA.ORG>
Subject: IOP & author fees for publishing

I believe that I may have missed out on discussions concerning the IOP and
possibly other similar publishers who have recently presented a new online
publishing model of charging authors to be published rather than selling
subscriptions.

I copy here a description of the new IOP online journal - New Journal of
Physics.

" New Journal of Physics (NJP) is a peer-reviewed, all-electronic journal
publishing original research in all areas of physics. The journal's Editors
and staff are committed to building NJP into the leading scientific journal
in its field by publishing articles of outstanding scientific quality that
merit the attention and  interest of all physicists. NJP is available
without charge to readers around the  world via the Internet. NJP is funded
by article charges from authors of published papers. "

I would appreciate some feedback on the quality of this journal and it's
reception, if possible.   Some staff here suspect that this approach may be
open to potential degradation of physics literature, and that the amount of
literature published in this manner will be small.

I would appreciate some views and comments from others who have already
examined this question and have either decided that the model is sound [for
what reasons] or that it is not workable [for what reasons]

MTIA
Joanna Tousley-Escalante
VIC Library
Vienna, Austria