Annals of Library Science and DocumentationVol 29(2),45-50

SYNOPSIS JOURNALS - COMMUNICATION MEDIAFOR A TRANSITION PERIOD

Rising costs of primary periodicals andincreasing delays in the publication of scientificarticles in them have created a crisis in com-munication. Paperless information systems havebeen suggested by some as a panacea. But it iscontended that, for some time to come, print-on-paper will continue to be the preferred com-munication medium for scientists. However, thepresent form of primary communication has toundergo metamorphosis to cope with the pre-sent situation. The merit of a synopsis journal,as the primary mode of communication, hasbeen advocated and is supported. To give theidea practical impetus, standardization in thecontents and format of synopsis journals issuggested. And a plea is made for the wideracceptance of the synopsis journal conceptthan has so far been achieved.

INTRODUCTION

Periodical publications have been, and remain,the most favoured means of communication forresearch workers, and most important sources ofscientific and technical information. However,over the years, the tremendous increase in thenumber, size, and cost of primary periodicals hasraised grave doubts about the continuation inthe future of this popular mode of communi-cation. According to Lancaster [1] , the onlylong term solution of publication problem is aswitch-over from a paper-based communicationsystem to an electronic one. It is now claimedthat the electronic accessibility of informationsources is improving rapidly as the accessibilityof printed source is declining. In an excellent

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review of the evolution of communicationmedia from the ancient Sumerian clay tabletsto the modem electronic journal, Seiler andRaben [2] state that electronic publicationoffers great potential for the communicationof information, and predict that we may be onthe verge of another Renaissance and the open-ing of vaster horizons to the human imagination.

This crisis in scientific communication isnot entirely a recent phenomenon. As far backas 1947, Bernalj S] outlined a scheme for thecentralised distribution of scientific publicationsto overcome this bottleneck in scientific com-munication. The chief objectives of his schemewere to ensure that every scientific workerreceives, as rapidly as possible and with theleast expense, those papers in which he ismost interested. This was to be effected notby the radical reorganisation of the methods ofpresentation of scientific papers, but the exist-ing machinery of the scientific societies was tobe supplemented by a distributing body func-tioning as the agency of the societies and in noway interfering with their editorial functions.The key to Bernal's proposal was the idea ofdepositing scientific manuscripts with certaindistributing authorities. Bernal, who elaboratedthe scheme during the Royal Society ScientificInformation Conference held in June-J uly 1948,afterwards withdrew his presentation on accountof a misunderstanding about the status, nature,and scope of his proposals.

The problem in replacing the journal is thatit fulfils a number of different objectives simul-taneously. It provides a current awarenessservice, it has an archival function, and it cer-

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tifies through publication that a piece of re-search is acceptable to the scientific community.Scientists do not communicate just to inform.They publish for the sake of recognition, whichvery often leads to material advancement. Therecording of scientific research in an intangibleelectronic form, or the possibility of the archivalstorage of papers without peer assessment areunlikely to meet the aspiration or approval ofmost research workers. The much more wide-spread use of synopsis journals could be theanswer to this impasse.

THE ROLE AND ADVANTAGES OFSYNOPSIS JOURNALS

A synopsis journal publishes in normal printedform a summary of research achievemen t ingreater detail than an abstract. Concurrently thepublisher undertakes to make the full textreadily available on demand. The full text isreferred in the normal way. A synopsis journalis thus quite different from a short-communica-tion journal. The peer review ensures the credibi-lity of the fmdings reported - which is notnecessarily achieved in the publication ofshort-communication journals. Hence, publica-tions in a synopsis journal may be expected tohave a similar prestige value as that accorded topapers in conventional research journals.

The benefit from an increasing use of syn-opsis journals would be three-fold. First, theliterature explosion would be contained. Notthat the number of publications would comedown, but their bulk would - by 5 times or more(it is assumed that, on average, a scientificpaper runs to 10 pages). Secondly, scientistswould still be able to cite published papers,instead of quoting some non-descript codenumber indicating the location where the fulltext of the paper is deposited. Thirdly, therewould be considerable saving in printing costs(also great saving in paper, which is in shortsupply), as the full paper would not normally beprinted. Microform copies or photocopies fromthe original typescript submitted could be pro-vided on demand. Since, on average, demand fora single paper seldom exceeds 100, this systemwould function quite well. In exceptional cases,if the demand for copies is high, simple offset

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printing from the original could be done.A further, indirect, benefit would be derived

in research libraries where much space could besaved. The oft-repeated suggestion for savingspace by converting the conventional periodicalsinto microforms has not found much favour inactively used libraries. But synopsis journals,being thinner than conventional journals perpublished paper, would require less storagespace.

It is not enough if, to cope with the risingcost and inordinate delay in the publication ofscientific articles, they are stored in an elec-tronic medium. Their existence needs to bewell publicised. To reach beyond the peri-phery of invisible colleges, the printed medium -for both primary and secondary journals - isstill the preferred mode of communication, andwill remain so for a very long time to come.However, continually increasing costs of prim-ary and secondary periodicals place thembeyond the budget of many smaller researchlibraries. The solution is not a change of themedium in the short term, but a more rationaland effective use of the present medium untilthe switch-over to an entirely new medium isfeasible.

JUSTIFICATION FOR THE INCREASED USEOF SYNOPSIS JOURNALS

It is time that the idea of synopsis journalsshould be given a more serious trial than hasbeen done so far. No revolutionary changes inpresent publishing practices are involved. Thepublishing of primary journals by learnedsocieties and commercial publishers, withnormal refereeing procedures, would of coursecontinue. The only difference would' be thatprinted output would appear in synopsis jour-nal format. Each complete paper, in finalmanuscript form, would be retained with thepublishers (or a consortium of publishers) orsome designated central depositories. The de-positories (individual publishers or central de-positories) would convert the manuscriptsinto microfiche or other microforms to facili-tate the easy supply of copies on demand.Staff of central depositories, handling a largenumber of documents, might find it convenient

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to computerize their operations, including theconversion of the document into electronicform. Since complete copies of the articlewould be available from one central agency,the problem of royalty - payments to theauthor could be tackled centrally - and the ratefor copies could include the author's royalty.

From the practical point of view it wouldbe expedient not to have too many depositcentres in a country. For example, in India, theCouncil of Scientific and Industrial Research(CSIR), Indian Council of Agricultural Re-search (ICAR), Indian Council of MedicalResearch (ICMR), Department of Science andTechnology (DST), could be the deposit agen-cies for scientific papers. Similarly, the IndianCouncil of Social Science Research (ICSSR)and the National library are suggested as de-posit centres for social sciences and humanitiesrespectively. While designating any institution asthe deposit agency, infrastructure, and man-power available in the centre for handling thetask (storage, retrieval, duplication, and dissemi-nation) efficiently, should be taken into con-sideration.

The above suggestions are not very far-fetched. The international STM group of sciencepublishers (Scientific, Technical, and Medicalpublishers) met in Vienna recently to discussnew developments in publishing technology.During the meeting a major new venture wasannounced by David Brown of Pergamon onbehalf of his company, along with the Dutchcompany Elsevier, the German company Sprin-ger-Verlag, and Blackwell Scientific Publicationof U.K. Based on the work carried out byElsevier Scit"nce Publishers these four inter-national houses. acting as a consortium, intendto set up a system which would enable pub-lishers to create a machine-readable store ofdocuments hum which single articles could beproduced at cost acceptable to users [4] .

The feasibility and acceptibility of synopsisjournals have also been evaluated by others. Aproject was carried out jointly by the UniversityLibrary of Eath University and the Institution ofMechanical Engineers, U.K., to investigate thepotential of the synopsis journal concept bypublishing and then evaluating EngineeringSynopses [5] . The conclusions were that synop-

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sis publishing would be popular among mechani-cal engineers, especially those in management ordesign work rather than research, though there issome doubt whether it would be sufficientlyacceptable to authors. There is evidence thatfaster and less rigorous refereeing would beacceptable.

Earlier, a limited experiment in publishingsynopsis journals was carried out by the journalof the American Chemical Society. It wasconcluded that there is "an interest in, and needfor, a summary journal"[6J.

In 1977, the Chemical Society, London,began publication of their journal of ChemicalResearch in two parts.

(1) Part "S" con tains synopses of papersaccepted for publication. The synopsesare of one or two printed pages in ex-tent.

(2) Part "M" consists of the full texts.These are produced directly fromauthors' typescripts and are available inmicrofiche or miniprint form.

It was expected that the synopsis journal(Part S) would be ordered on subscription byindividual scientists, while libraries and insti-tutions would like to buy both Part S and PartM.

As part of a wide-ranging study by TheRoyal Society of the scientific informationsystem of the UK, a survey was carried out byRowland[7] of the views of authors of papers insynopsis journals. The major survey was ofjournal of Chemical Research authors, but twosmaller surveys were also performed of theauthors of synopsis papers in Production Engi-neering Synopses and Monthly Notices of theR.A.S. The main findings of the survey werethat a synopsis journal in the pure sciencesshould aim at the maximum speed of publica-tion consistent with the maintenance of schol-arly standards, and should publish its full textsin miniprin ts. However, the launching of syn-opsis journal requires careful planning anddiligen t "marketing" to potential authors.

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IMPROVEMENTSIN CONTENTANDFORMATThese findings indicate that synopsis journalscould be possible solution to a number ofproblems in the scientific publication. How-ever, to increase their effectiveness, a fewmodifications or refinements are considereddesirable. First, regarding the standardization ofthe content, it is suggested that each synopsisshould consist of four sections : bibliographicaldetails (author's name(s) and affiliation, titleof the article, locus, followed by such addi-tional information as the number of pages,references, figures, charts, plates, etc., in thefull paper); keywords (to describe the contentsadequately - not too many, not too few), anabstract (about 1000 words); and the synopsisproper, reporting the main findings of theinvestigation.

Secondly, regarding the format, it is sug-gested that the page make-up should be stand-ardized, using two columns (8.5 x 22.5 em) inan A4 page size, set in 10 point text. Eachcolumn would contain nearly 400 words, suchthat an A4 size page would comprise 800words without illustrations. Most synopsescould, therefore, be accommodated in twopages of a synopsis journal. Advantages offormat standardization are that library dis-play and photo - or microcopying are facilitated.Distribution of reprints to the authors would becheaper and more convenient if the synopsis isrestricted to two pages only.

Such format and presentation standardi-sation would also help in the preparation of thesecondary publications. Staff of indexingjournals could cut and paste the entries from thebibliographical sections of the synopsis, toproduce their own publications. Since noextra composition is involved, there would besubstantial savings in time and money. Simi-larly, abstracting journals could use the biblio-graphical details, the abstract, and the key-words (optionally) as camera-ready copy, andthe text matter could be photographicallyreduced if required. Prior permission to use thematerial this way is implied in these sugges-tions. However, Meadows[8] has questionedthe future of abstracts journal, if synopsisjournal becomes common.

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AVOIDANCEOF PUBUSillNG DELAYS

Another problems that is constantly men-tioned regarding periodical publications - bothprimary and secondary ~ is .the delays in-volved. There may be a delaybf severalmonths(perhaps more than a year), from the time apaper is submitted for publication to the timeit actually appears in print. There is also a con-siderable time lag between the publication of anarticle in a scientific journal and its appearancein an abstracting journal of the order of severalmonths to more than a year.

Delays in primary publication are due totwo factors: the process of refereeing and theprinting backlog. To obviate the former bottle-neck many scientists have suggested less rigorousrefereeing. However, there is evidence that re-duction in refereeing standards would definitelynot be acceptable to the majority of scientists.In supporting this view, the point is made that,in synopsis journal publishing, both refereeringand printing delays can be reduced to a mini-mum by simple procedures. Once a paper isrefereed and accepted for publication, it can bequickly published in synopsis form while thefull paper undergoes rigorous editorial pro-cessing prior to final typing and despatch to acentral depository. And, if the editors of second-ary publications are permitted - and choose - touse data published in synopsis journals without,or with little modification, further delays insecondary publication may be reduced. Thequestion of prestige and delay times of synop-

UMITATIONS IN ELECTRONICPUB-USHING

According to Lancaster, for economic reasonsalone the future lies with electronics rather thanprint-on-paper. Costs of electronic storage andof telecommunications are falling- rapidly.Increasing costs of information transfer inprint-on-paper form are reducing the accessi-bility of information. This message is clear that,while pro-rata costs and accessibility, throughelectronics, will continue to improve, costs andaccessibility through print-on-paper can onlyget worse.

While these trends are unambiguous, therearc other factors, besides economic ones, that

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are worth considering. The foremost point toconsider is the fact that all countries are notequally able, technologically and financially,to take advantage of these new developments.Since the progress of mankind is based onsharing a common pool of knowledge, it willbe a tragedy if developing countries are effec-tively denied access to this pool, because ofinfrastructural deficiencies. Such inaccesibilitywould inevitably increase the existing gapbetween advanced and developing countriesas pointed out by East and Belking [10] .

It is appropriate, in this context, to take astock of the situation obtaining in developedcountries that are in a better position to em-brace the electronic age.

In January 1981, more than thirty leadersin the field of communications gathered inWashington, D.C. to discuss how telecom-munications are going to affect our lives in the1980s, with particular regard to publishing,advertising, retailing, broadcasting, and cabletelevision [11]. In a panel discussion on elec-tronic publishing and document delivery, J.Christopher Bums of the Washington PostCompany told his audience that the inforrna-.tion industry does not demand regulation andstandards. Bums was critical of some existingonline consumer devices, including The Source,which, he said, only provided "cumbersomeaccess to the wire services and subscriptionto a discount shopping service". According tohim, the experience of putting the ColumbusDispatch online has not been very encouraging.Similarly, the experience of the British. view-data system, Prestel, has been rather disappoint-ing. In eighteen months of its existence, only1288 people have bought the special televisionsets for domestic use. The British Telecom hasnow changed its marketing strategy, aiming atbusiness rather than domestic users[12].

During June 1981, the Institute of Informa-tion Science, Philadelphia, sent the followingannouncement to the subscribers of the ScienceCitation Index, "In 1980 we announced a newpackage: the bimonthlies, annual, a preferen-tial rate for using SCI online through SCI-SEARCH, and the 1980-84 five-year curnmu-lation .... The same package and price were re-tained for 1981, while we evaluated this new

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subscription policy ..... The package was createdprimarily to encourage online use. Previouslythose who could afford it were using SCI-SEARCH. But many academic SCI subscriberssaid they had not because of the relativelyhigh rates. We counted on a large increase inacademic online use to cover a substantialportion of the cos~s of including the 1980-84comulation. This has not occurred. So it wasa serious mistake to try to move too quicklyinto the online Ga."

Clearly, there are lessons to learn from thesecomments. We must hasten slowly and withcaution - as suggested by Cleverdon [13] duringthe 39th FID Congress, September 1978. Hehas put forth his argument that mechanizedinformation handling has not yet found wideacceptance. Even in North America, wheregreatest development in electronic communi-cation has taken place, it has been estimatedthat not more than 8% of retrospective searchesin formal information services are made usingmechanized systems. In Europe, it is muchless. Moreover, he is of the view that intro-duction of the sophisticated means of infor-mation transfer will only accentuate the infor-mation gap already existing between the de-veloped and the develping countries.

CONCLUSION

The position is thus clear. We may be headingtowards a paperless system, but print-on-paperas a medium of primary scientific communi-cation is going to continue for a much longerperiod than is predicted by many. However,because the cost of print-on-paper is increasingat a much faster rate than the general rate ofinflation, and the cost increase of some ofprimary and secondary periodicals in the lastdecade has been of the order of 200 to 300%,it appears unlikely that such trends can continuefor long. It, accordingly, appears necessary thatthe present print-on-paper system should under-go a metamorphosis in order to survive.

It has been the purpose of this paper tosuggest that the publication of synopsis journaloffers a viable and acceptable medium of prim-ary communication in this present transitionperiod. But in conclusion, the point needs to

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be made that changes in scientific journal pub-lishing are bound to lead to adjustment conse-quences at other points in the information net-work. Over the years, the scientific journal hasbecome part of an integrated system of com-munication. Any transition from the conven-tional format to a nonconventional format isbound to effect the whole system. Thus, thoughthe concept of the synopsis journal holds greatpromise, there are user-need and market-placeimplications that need to be considered morethoroughly than has been attempted so far. Inthe words of Manten [14] "Studies are neededabout how synopses can be made to functionin the best possible way. Authors need to becarefully instructed and the writing and use ofsynopses must be thoughtfully promoted.Collaboration needs to be encouraged betweenuniversity staff, research managers, editors,publishers, librarians and others in the worldof primary information".

A great deal of debate has been going onabout synopsis journals in recent times. Numer-ous studies have shown that synoptic publica-tion is not only feasible but also desirable in thepresent context of literature glut. However, aswith all other human endeavour, there seems tobe a tendency to conservatism in the field ofprimary communication as well. The synopsisjournal idea is a victim of this conservatism. Itcertainly deserves a better deal.

REFERENCES

[1] Lancaster, F.W. Whither libraries? or,Wither libraries. College and ResearchLibraries 1978, 39,345-357.

[2] Seiler, L Wand Raben, J. The Elec-tronic Journal. Society 1981 (September-October), 76-83.

Bernal, J D. Nature 1947, 160 (8 Nov),649.

[3]

[4] Campbell, R. Information technology onthe move. New Scientist 1981, 90(1256),630.

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[5] Millson , R J. An experiment in synopsispublishing in the field of mechanical engi-neering. London: British Library 1979.(British Library Research and Develop-ment Report No.5498). .

[6] Terrant, S Wand Carson, L R. Evaluationof a dual journal concept. Journal ofChemical Information and ComputerScience 1977, 17(2),61-67.

[7] Rowland, J F B. Synopsis journals as seenby their authors. Journal of Documenta-tion 1981,37(2),69-76.

[8] Meadows, A J. ed. The Scientific Journal.London: Aslib, 1979.

[9] Oppenheim, C and Price, S. Pricing, de-lay times and prestige of synoptic jour-nals. Journal of Research CommunicationStudies 1979, 1, 305-313.

[10] East, H and Belkin, N J. Advanced tech-nology and the developing countries: thegrowing gap [In: P.J. Taylor, ed. Newtrends in documentation and information.London: Aslib, 1980].129-133.

[11] Nelson, M. Infotel 1981: the future oftelecommunications. Wilson LibraryBulletin 1981, (March), 494-496.

[12] Redfearn, J. Viewdata systems. Nature1981,291 (21 May), 182.

[13] Cleverdon , C W. Communication net-works, their impact and their effect onthe future of the profession [In : P.J.Taylor, ed., New trends in documenta-tion and information. London : Aslib,1980].124-128.

[14] Manten , A A. Possible future relevanceof publishing scholarly information in theform of synopses. Journal of InformationScience 1980, 1, 293-296.

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