Nature publishing accused of diluting journals for nanoscience market gain

Nature Publishing Group has defended its journals and pricing structure, after information professionals slammed it for diluting its core journal in an effort to chase lucrative nanoscience journals market share.

“My heart sinks whenever I see an email from Nature announcing yet another new publication,” said Tony Kidd, assistant director, finance & corporate service at Glasgow University Library . “Nature needs to be careful not to dilute the quality of their publications, and the market for their journals,” he said.

The growing number of nanoscience journals has been described as unsustainable by Kidd and information professionals in the US discussing the issue with the education newspaper The Chronicle of Higher Education .

Dr Jason Wilde, publisher of physical sciences at Nature Publishing Group agrees that the current growth rates are unsustainable and added that Nature is not chasing a target number of new titles.

Nanoscience is the hot potato of scientific research and STM publishing at present, with the number of papers being published growing every year. “Nanoscience is finding more funding than other areas of science,” Wilde said.

John Wiley & Sons, Sp ringer and Taylor & Francis have all released new nanoscience journals recently. Nature joins the fray in October with its title Nature Nanotechnology.

“The company has grown, but most launches have been in clinical medicine,” said Wilde. “Before we launch a journal we always go out to the scientific community for their response to the idea first.” Information professionals are concerned that Nature is diluting the brand, which is built around the famous journal of the same name.

“ Nature is a journal about the best of the best science, for a paper to be published in Nature it has be a significant scientific advance and it has to appeal to a wide audience,” Wilde explained. “The sister titles like Nature Nanotechnology are more targeted, you know your audience.”

“We spend more money on Nature journals than with any other publisher, something that certainly wasn’t the case a few years ago. Nature has been less than transparent in their pricing models for electronic access,” Kidd said.

In response to these experiences, Wilde revealed that Nature is to publish its base rate prices online soon and refutes claims of non-cooperation with consortia’s. “We do all we can to work with site licences”.