Like many professional societies, the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR) serves its community by publishing a journal that provides a forum for researchers in the field to share the results of their research. Through peer review, journals like Aerosol Science and Technology, which is published by Taylor & Francis for the American Association of Aerosol Research, vet papers, certifying both the quality of the science and the exposition of the manuscript. Both the editors who manage the process and the reviewers who provide their expert opinions voluntarily invest their efforts to ensure that only quality research appears within the pages of society journals. Commercial publishers who produce printed and electronic versions of the papers contained within the pages of the journal, on the other hand, run businesses that must return a profit to their shareholders.
There is another party to this publishing enterprise, the institutional subscribers, libraries and other organizations. It is from these organizations that the publishers' profits derive. Thus, the success of small society publications rides upon an oft-strained collaboration. Herein, the American Association for Aerosol Research has taken a unique approach to ensure that all of the partners in this important enterprise gain from their efforts. First, recognizing the obligation of the association to the broad research community, and to the society at large that funds most of its research, the AAAR chose not to maximize its profits from the journal, but rather to work with its publisher and constrain the institutional subscription price escalation. Over the past 5 years, the institutional subscription price for AS&T has increased less than 16%, matching the inflation rate. This took place at a time when most institutional subscription rates were increasing at many times the rate of inflation.
How could a publisher accept such constraints? The combined efforts of authors, editors, and reviewers provide a valuable product, quality scientific and technological papers. By recognizing the mutual dependency in this publishing enterprise, the association, the publisher, the editors and reviewers, and the authors collaborate to produce a cost-effective product.
There is more, however. Because the AAAR owns the journal title, and the copyright to the materials published within its covers, it found that it has a unique opportunity to serve the broader community by making its journal archives available over the Internet. Over the last decade the research community and, indeed, the public in general, have spoken with their fingers by embracing the Internet as the preferred path to information of any kind. The convenience is undeniable. Only recently have papers been published on-line; earlier manuscripts have been restricted to those who have access to print volumes, either members of the association or those with access to the limited number of libraries that have maintained institutional subscriptions. A number of associations have scanned their print archives, but made them only available to subscribers.
The AAAR took a different approach. In recognition of its obligation to the public that has generously supported its research, the AAAR decided that the print backfile, the papers published in print form only, should be made openly accessible to the whole world via the Internet. The present publisher of this journal agreed. Moreover, Taylor and Francis expressed willingness to support the retrodigitization of the print archives of the journal, and to make them freely accessible on the present journal website. But, how is this to be accomplished?
Here enters the third partner in the collaboration to make the products of the aerosol research community available to society at large. An institution that has borne the brunt of decades of rapacious escalation of institutional subscription prices, and that seeks improvement to information access, came forth to provide a critical service. The Caltech Libraries welcomed the opportunity to participate in making the back-files of Aerosol Science and Technology freely accessible to all, with the publisher paying nominal labor costs. The Caltech Libraries have a highly skilled staff that is digitizing all of Caltech's theses. They pay close attention to quality issues recognizing the importance of clear and legible figures. They also understand the importance of visual consistency of page alignment. A process was arranged with Taylor and Francis for Caltech Library staff to provide TIFF and PDF versions of the papers all tagged and named according to specifications, and including background optical character recognition files to make the articles whole-text searchable. This was completed in May 2007; the full-text of the entire back-file of Aerosol Science and Technology is now available to the world. In addition, all papers published in the journal are being made available to the world via the Internet one year after initial publication.
Creation of this open-access electronic archive allows authors who publish in these pages to reach a larger audience. Aerosol Science and Technology embargoes only 1 year of content for the subscriber so the electronic open-access archive naturally grows with each new issue. An increasing body of data shows that articles available without restrictions are more frequently cited. This is important to authors for whom the number of citations provides a measure of the significance of their work. Furthermore, the public, whoever they may be, have maximum opportunity to benefit from the research they fund.
Can professional associations, libraries, and commercial publishers find models to coexist? The answer is a clear yes-provided they are equal partners. By maintaining ownership of the intellectual property that they create while engaging publishers to assist in the publishing enterprise, and libraries to assist in the creation of the electronic archives, professional associations, even small ones, become empowered to position their journals to provide the greatest benefit to authors, to association members, and to the public.