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Stephen P. Lock on "Journalology"

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Stephen P. Lock on INSTITUTE FOn SCIENTl FICl NF0F4MAT10N8 3501 MARKET ST PHILADELPHIA PA 19104 Stephen P. Lock on “Journalology” Number 3 January 15, 1990 I don’t remember exactly how long I have Lock: Editor and Scholar known Stephen P. Lock. Our first encounter was probably at a meeting of the Council of Biology Editors (CBE) some 20 years Stephen P. Lock was born in 1929 and re- ago. It is somewhat unsettling to realize that ceived his education at Queen’s College, so much time has gone by. Equally disquiet- Cambridge University, UK, and the Medical ing is the notion that Steve will soon retire College of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. as editor of the venerable British Medical Trained as a hematologist, he served on the Journal (BMJ). But in the near future Steve staffs of various London teaching hospitals, will indeed step down, having helped train including St. Bartholomew’s and the Hos- his successor, due to be appointed in the fall pital for Sick Children, before being ap- of 1990. pointed assistant editor of BMJ in 1964. It seems odd to refer to Lock as an elder After serving as senior assistant editor and statesman of biomedical editing-however deputy editor, Lock became editor in 1975. accurate that description might be. The word I am amused that Steve opened his talk that comes to mind when I think of Steve with the traditional, mythical reminder about is youth. This youthfidness is reflected in the estimates of the number of extant jour- his writing and in his approach to problems. nals. I‘ve commented on this many times be- Last spring Lock addressed the CBE’S 33d fore. If there are 15,000 “serious” publica- annual meeting in Rochester, Mimesota. tions, as he puts it, he is quick to correct His talk on “Joumrdology,” published orig- the frdse impression this number creates. inally in the newsletter CBE Views, 1 is re- The so-called information’ ‘explosion” is printed here. In it, he demonstrates why he an illusion. There has actually been a con- has gained the respect of his peers. stant growth of 5 to 7 percent per year since While Lock has published scores of edi- 1665. Although there is good reason to be- torials and articles, his most visible work lieve that this growth pattern no longer is the 1985 book A Diflcult Bakmce,2 holds, it is a useful rule of thumb to estimate which I discussed in Current Contents@ that the number of journals is consistently (CP] several years ago as part of an essay related to the number of research scientists, on refereeing.3 At that time 1S1Press@ held or even to the number of physicians. Lock the publishing rights to this now-classic mentions unpublished work by Annals ofln- commentary on peer review. The book orig- temal Medicine editor Edward J. Huth, an- inally had a limited distribution under the other elder statesman of medical editing who sponsorship of the Rock Carlirtg Fellowship is also approaching retirement. Huth deter- and the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust. mined that for the last 30 years or so there A D@cult Balance is still available through have been about 17 journals for every 1,000 Waverly Press, Baltimore, Maryland. registered physicians. 19 But, in spite of all this, it is now clearly established that there is a much smaller nttm- ,,...,. ber of significant journals in the world. And /- as the literature grows, the role of these sig- nificant journals becomes even more cen- tral. Less than a few hundred journals ac- count for the vast majority of significant re- search. Nevertheless, each edition of CC covers approximately 1,000 journals. The combined editions, covering about 5,000 scientific titles in all, give a fairly compre- hensive view of worldwide science. What is more important is that this enor- mous output demands even higher standards in regard to publication, peer review, and professional performance by editors. Fur- ther complexity is added by the huge public interest in the results of research, intensified by a large corps of science journalists eager to report the latest discoveries. I find particularly interesting Steve’s pre- diction that in the near future editors will be held accountable for their conduct. He Stephen P. Lock forecasts that anonymity in journal opera- tions will disappear and that all authors will receive justice in the form of’ ‘much fuller is matched by the dearth of curricula on pub- explanations and instructions to au- lishing. I’ve urged my colleagues at sever- thors.. and peer reviewers’ reports. ” I al universities to consider the need and op- He also subscribes to the suggestion of portunities for establishing such a program. yearly self-audits by editors first suggested Steve Lock, of course, would make an ex- in THE SCIENTISP by Andrew Herx- cellent professor of joumalology. Fortunate- heimer, the editor of the Drug and thera- ly, his plans tier leaving BIUI include teach- peutic Bulletin.4 ing on this topic. He will be working part- Steve’s talk also refers to meta-analysis, time on the newly established Faculty of the a concept which not all CC readers will be History of Modem Clinical Science at the familiar with. It is a topic I intend to cover Wellcome Institute for the History of Med- in greater detail in the future because it is icine, London,s to be established under the so closely related to the notion of the library directorship of Sir Christopher Booth, cur- as a laboratory. The literature becomes a rently Harveian Librarian of the Royal Col- powerful tool when previously unrelated lege of Physicians of London. Lock hopes studies are pulled together by an informed ;Ocontinue teaching about joumalology— reviewer with adequate expertise in proba- wrticularly about fraud and peer review—as bility statistics. well as holding courses in medical writing, ‘‘Joumalology” is an appropriate neolo- >f which he has now conducted over 100 gism for what has become a widespread hu- hroughout the world in the past 20 years. man activity. Where it fits on the complex map of information science is of some aca- *$*** demic interest but more important is the fact that to my knowledge there exists no course My thinks to Christopher King for his help in joumrdology anywhere. This inadequacy n the preparation of this essay. ~,,,,~, 20 REFERENCES 1. Leek S P. ‘‘Joumalology”: are the quotes needed? ClJ,? Views 12:57-9, 1989. 2. -------=---- A dificu!t balance: editorial peer review in medicine. London: Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, 1985. 172 p, 3. Gat-tleld E. Refereeing and peer review. Part 2, The research on refereeing and alternatives to the present system. Essays of an information scientist: the awards of science and other essays. Philadelphia: 1S1Press, 1988. Vol. 9. p. 239-48. 4. Herxheimer A. Make scientific journals more responsive-and responsible. i’HE SCZEN77ST 3(6):9; 11, 20 March 1989. (Reprinted in: Current Confenfs (31):3-6, 31 July 1989.) 5. Garfield E. The enduring legacy of Sir Hettry Welleome-pharmaceutical entrepreneur, philanthropist, and collector extraordinaire. Current Contenfs (3):3-8, 18 January 1988. Reprinted with pcmdssmn from CBE Views 12(4):57-9, 1989. “JolmmMogy”: Are the Quotes Needed? Stephen P. Lock British Medical Journal, Tavistock Square, London WDIH 9JR, United Kingdom In ttrk tafk, Stepherr P. bck considers the continuing evolution in the population and forms of scientific joumats and in editorial prsctices. Asdisciplines split and gmw increasingly specialized, new journals arise to fdl the needs of the various subdkciplines. The implications of W, for specialist joumsfs and general joumsts alike, are exam- ined. Alsodiscussed is the prospect that, in the future, editors will be held increasingly responsible and accountable for articlecontent, Some current estimates put the totaf number of rule of thumb is that a scientistwho publishesone scientificjournals at lCWOO, some 20-25,000 of article every year can fake in the contentsof more them biomedical-of which 15,000 or more are than one other paper a month, but less than one “serious” publications (that is, giving data and article a day. This leads to a few hundred indL referwtces, using peer review, and so on). And vidrsalskeepingeachother in business.Now a few yet tfis so-erdled “explosion” is an illusion; the hundred is the same size as the membership of rate of expansion since the beginning of serious the early scientific societies, and of today’s in- publication in 1665 has been a constant 5 to 7% visible colleges.z a year. ] There are, of course, many more scien- Disciplines tend to split every 10 years or so, tists arounddtan drere ever have been, ad there’s and the new strbdiseipfinesdo not nec-eswrifymr- a cogentsuggestionthat dieproportionof the num- responcfwith the organizational and professional ber ofjournals to the number of scientists is con- structures. These are much more rigid and slower stant. This was home out by some unpublished to change than the way in which the pattern of research by Dr. Edward J. Htrth, the editor of the new knowledgechanges. These struetttres wilJin- Annals of Internal Medicine, who took two un- clude journals, and thus there is constantly a real doubtedlyaccurate figures over the past 30 years: need for newjoumrds which wifl reflect the needs the number of journals received by the Natiortaf of the new subdiscipline. In this way a specialist Library of Me&cine in Bethesda. Maryland, and journal will be formed to take some of the work the number of registered physicians in the United which has become too complex for the genersd States. He found that there was a constant ratio joumrd-and the general journal may truly have of 17journals per 1000 physicians and that this been under tremendouspressure for spaceand un- hadn’t changed over the past 30 years.
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