Getting the information 'out there'

More to do

But these efforts are far from bringing the important benefits of journal publishing to the South on a large scale. Nor do they recognise the value of regional journal systems, which, through their detailed regional focus, are much richer than the tiny fraction of information lucky enough to make it into the core literature.

Systematic interventions are needed to create a less skewed and self-perpetuating scholarly literature system - one where the downward spiral of “have-nots” can be reversed in sustainable ways on a regional level.

In 2006, the Academy of Science of South Africa published a comprehensive study of about 250 South African journals (20-24 of them indexed by Thomson Scientific) accredited by the local Department of Education as “valid research outputs”. This study strongly supported building up an indigenous system of high-quality, mostly open access, scholarly journals.

The academy now has a scholarly publishing program with several sub-projects, including consensus peer review by academy-appointed panels of groups of national disciplinary journals (aimed at making recommendations on their optimal configuration in the future), a code of best practice, a forum of scholarly editors and a follow-up academy study review of book publishing in and from the country.

The intention is to build a national platform for journal publishing that: ensures good practice; attracts quality papers from the region and elsewhere; mobilises the support of government and research institutions; harnesses local skills; and reaps the benefits of publishing journals that can generate an international reputation.

In Brazil, the publically funded SciELO organisation has established a quality- controlled regional journal system that represents a fully indexed, open access publishing platform for just fewer than 200 journals, out of more than 1,000 published in the country. This system - already copied by several other Latin American nations - has allowed citation indexing within a regional journal context, and revealed at least two active clusters of journals, one “international” and one “regional”.

There are currently moves afoot to link Thomson Scientific's indexed databases (enlarged to include more good journals from the developing world) to those of SciELO and other evolving regional models. That would mean a much richer, more diversified and inclusive global scholarly system could be developed co-operatively - something to be warmly welcomed.