Are book publications disappearing from scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities?

Date19 November 2018
Published date19 November 2018
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-05-2018-0127
Pages592-607
AuthorTim C.E. Engels,Andreja Istenič Starčič,Emanuel Kulczycki,Janne Pölönen,Gunnar Sivertsen
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management
Are book publications disappearing
from scholarly communication in
the social sciences and humanities?
Tim C.E. Engels
University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Andreja IsteničStarčič
University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia;
University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia and
Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Russia
Emanuel Kulczycki
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poznan, Poland
Janne Pölönen
Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, Helsinki, Finland, and
Gunnar Sivertsen
Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education, Oslo, Norway
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution in terms of shares of scholarly book
publications in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in five European countries, i.e. Flanders (Belgium),
Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia. In addition to aggregate results for the whole of the social sciences
and the humanities, the authors focus on two well-established fields, namely, economics & business
and history.
Design/methodology/approach Comprehensive coverage databases of SSH scholarly output have been
set up in Flanders (VABB-SHW), Finland (VIRTA), Norway (NSI), Poland (PBN) and Slovenia (COBISS).
These systems allow to trace the shares of monographs and book chapters among the total volume of
scholarly publications in each of these countries.
Findings As expected, the shares of scholarly monographs and book chapters in the humanities and in the
social sciences differ considerably between fields of science and between the five countries studied.
In economics & business and in history, the results show similar field-based variations as well as country
variations. Most year-to-year and overall variation is rather limited. The data presented illustrate that book
publishing is not disappearing from an SSH.
Research limitations/implications The results presented in this paper illustrate that the polish
scholarly evaluatio n system has influenced scholarly pu blication patterns considerably, wh ile in the other
countries the variatio ns are manifested only slight ly. The authors conclude th at generalizations like
performance-based r esearch funding systems (PRFS) are bad for boo k publishingare flawed. Research
evaluation systems need to take book publishing fully into account because of the crucial epistemic and
social roles it serves in a n SSH.
Originality/value The authors present data on monographs and book chapters from five comprehensive
coverage databases in Europe and analyze the data in view of the debates regarding the perceived
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 70 No. 6, 2018
pp. 592-607
Emerald Publishing Limited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-05-2018-0127
Received 30 May 2018
Revised 10 September 2018
28 September 2018
3 October 2018
Accepted 3 October 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2050-3806.htm
© Tim C.E. Engels, Andreja IsteničStarčič, Emanuel Kulczycki, Janne Pölönen and Gunnar Sivertsen.
Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative
works of this article ( for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full
attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at
http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
This work is conducted within the framework of the COST action European Network for Research
Evaluation in the Social Sciences and Humanities(ENRESSH, CA15137, enressh.eu). Tim Engels
thanks the Flemish Government for its financial support to the Centre for R&D Monitoring (ECOOM).
592
AJIM
70,6
detrimental effects of research evaluation systems on scholarly book publishing.The authors show that there
is little reason to suspect a dramatic decline of scholarly book publishing in an SSH.
Keywords Humanities, Social sciences, Book chapter, Book publishing, Monograph,
Performance-based research funding
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Publication patterns in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) are diverse. In the SSH book
publishing takes a prominent role, both in terms of communicating with international peers
and with a broader intelligentsia (Basili and Lanzillo, 2018; Hicks, 2004; Verleysen and
Engels, 2014). Nevertheless, many criticisms of scholarly book publishing have been voiced.
Harnad (1986), for example, advised against contributing chapters to edited volumes given
the long delays that may occur in their publication process. Nederman (2005) warns that in
academic evaluation contexts book chapters and edited volumes are hardly taken into
account. In some humanities disciplines, however, the publication of a scholarly monograph
is a requirement for professors to obtain tenure (Cronin and La Barre, 2004). In the field of
history, for example, the publication of a monograph is considered a test of competency and
of prestige, and a necessity in order to obtain tenure in the USA (Townsend, 2003). Yet the
immanent disappearance of the scholarly monograph has also been predicted (Thompson,
2002) and has been attributed to research evaluation regimes (Williams et al., 2009). In sum,
there is no shortage in opinions on the evolving role and position of books in the SSH and
the factors influencing these evolutions. Systematic empirical information regarding the
share of monographs and book chapters among scholarly publications is scantly available,
however, thus complicating the interpretation of perceived evolutions, if any.
We fill this gap in the research literature by investigating empirically the evolutions of
the shares of scholarly book publications using comprehensive publication data collected in
Flanders (Belgium), Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia. For each country, we analyze
the evolution of the share of monographs and book chapters for the humanities and
the social sciences. Moreover, we analyze this evolution for the field of history within the
humanities and for the field of economics & business within the social sciences. We discuss
the implications of the empirical observations in relation to the often voiced concern that
formal research evaluation regimes work against the production of books.
The structure of this paper is as follows. First, the literature review discusses factors that
may influence SSH scholars in their choice of publication channels, and some of the
available evidence regarding the evolving share of book publications among scholarly
publishing. After the methods and data section, we present the results in a series of eight
tables. The discussion summarizes the empirical findings and positions them in the light of
the debate on the possible consequences of research evaluation regimes.
Literature review
Several factors may influence the choices of an SSH scholars to publish chapters, edited
volumes or embark on a monograph. We distinguish between factors relating to the
research process itself, factors relating to the process of publication, factors relating to the
findability and visibility of publications and factors relating to informal and formal
academic evaluation contexts.
Research process
With regardto the research process, the epistemic approachin the humanities and parts of the
social sciences may be a fundamental reason for scholars to opt for book publications. For
instance, Bonaccorsi (2018) argues that book publications are compatible with an SSH
scholarsneed forlong explanations, and Basili and Lanzillo(2018) suggest that monographs
593
Scholarly
communication

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