I have consulted Don King, who is the guru of quantitative publishing
research! He has statistics from the late 70s in his (indispensable!) book
'Towards Electronic Journals' (SLA, 2000), at which time the average across
all disciplines was 10.3 months (considerably longer in Mathematics and
shortest in what were described as 'other' sciences). He reports that
subsequent studies showed this time decreasing until the early 80s and then
increasing again. He is aware of no recent research, although it is his
impression that electronic processes are helping to reduce it once again.
However, I think it's dangerous to use an 'all disciplines' average since
the variations - and acceptability - are so different from discipline to
discipline. More useful is to look at the leading journals in the field
you're interested in, and work out from the printed dates (if given) what
the average delay actually is.
Sally
Sally Morris, Secretary-General
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Phone: 01903 871686 Fax: 01903 871457 E-mail: [log in to unmask]
ALPSP Website http://www.alpsp.org.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Isobel Stark <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 20 July 2000 14:07
Subject: Publication time stats
>I've been asked by one of our academics if are there any stats on the
>average time its take for a journal to deal with a paper from receipt to
>publication?
>
>Does anyone know of such a source?
>
>Isobel
>
>__
>Isobel Stark email: [log in to unmask]
>Subject Librarian
>University of Bath tel: 01225 826826 ext. 5587
>Bath, BA2 7AY
>
>
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