Why are new journals created? ¿Por qué se crean nuevas revistas?

What is it about?

The creation or title changes of scientific journals in the information and documentation (ID) area in the period 2013-2018 are analyzed. Based on the total of 62 such journals identified through ISSN Portal and Ulrichsweb, the following are described: characteristic aspects such as country, language, type of publisher, and access model; presence in bibliographic databases, citations, or journal directories; survival and volume of articles published; annual number of citations to articles according to Google Scholar; thematic scope declared by the editors; and finally, the justification given by the editors for the change of title or the creation of a new journal. Among the main conclusions regarding newly created titles, the leading role of academic publishers in expanding national university systems and open-access titles stands out. In general, new publications generate few articles per year, have little presence in databases, and receive few citations. Title changes were found only in journals published by commercial publishers. In both cases, journals with a general thematic scope predominate and a significant number of journals did not justify their creation or change of title.

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Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

Why is it important?

At the time of the creation or reorientation of a journal, the reasons that justify this initiative should be made clear in the publication itself through an article in the form of an editorial with an explanation of the circumstances, objectives, and scope of the publication; that is, its raison d’être. Along with this piece, the journal should include a detailed explanation of the nature of the publication on its website. In any case, beyond informing readers, the reasons given to justify the creation of a journal should provide the raw material for the decision-making process during its prenatal and perinatal period. The phenomenon of journal creation deserves further studies to better understand the mechanisms underl-ying scientific communication systems. However, despite the abundant literature on scientific communication, few wor-ks have studied the reasons and motivations for journal creation.2 For this reason, thiswork presents a methodological exploration in this regard. The information and documentation (ID)3 area was chosen due its familiarity to the authors and its relatively small size in which the aforementioned exploration is more feasible.Together with an analysis of various characteristics of the set of selected titles, we applied content analysis on the jour-nal presentation texts to answer four research questions about the journals in the ID area that were created or changed their title between 2013 and 2018:RQ1. What is the profile of the new journals and title changes?RQ2. What are the characteristics of the journals in terms of their survival, volume of articles published, inclusion in databases, and citations received?RQ3. What is the orientation of the journals in terms of the scope they give to the discipline, its methods, and its themes?RQ4. How do their promoters justify the creation of new journals or the change of title of existing journals?

Perspectives