From: Jan Velterop <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2011 09:05:58 +0000 In defence of mediocre journals, let me delight you with a quote from José Ortega y Gasset's 'The Revolt of the Masses': "Experimental science has progressed – thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre." (The Ortega hypothesis) To which Lewis Wolpert in his book 'The Unnatural Nature of Science' (required reading, in my view – ISBN 0-571-16490-0): "Science accommodates and even needs the intellectually commonplace." To which I would add my assumption that none of that mediocre and commonplace, but necessary, science is published in 'prestige' journals. It follows then that the mediocre and even less than mediocre journals in which that material is presumably published, are necessary too. I see science publications as an edifice, with turrets and curlicues at the top (articles published in the likes of Nature and Science), solid walls (consisting of articles in the better journals), and a strong foundation of hard core (consisting of articles in mediocre and less than mediocre journals). Without this foundation, the edifice would collapse. Jan Velterop On 3 Dec 2011, at 03:55, LIBLICENSE wrote: Most large publishers produce and clog the market with more mediocre journals than prestigious ones. Once competition in the title-by-title acquisition by libraries helped purge the market. Now in the Big Deal model, new journals are added to the package and often there is no opt-out, only notification that the Big Deal will inflate some percentage and there will be a forced acquisition of these new titles at some percent of an imaginary list price for the new titles. Journal titles rarely cease in this market.