Good Lord! Another New Journal?

The words were not so dramatic, but they had the same connotation.

Last week when we were considering the names of few specialists to invite for editorial board of Edorium Journal of Tropical Medicine, we were recommended the name of a physician. We contacted him expressing our interest, with a request to consider joining the editorial board. We received a reply with the statement “I do not see the need of yet another journal on Tropical Medicine.”

The statement was disconcerting. This was the first time someone said something like this to us. It was time for some quiet introspection about the purpose of existence of Edorium Journals and Edorium Journal of Tropical Medicine.

Is there a need of another journal of tropical medicine?

No, there is not.

Surprised?

We did start Edorium Journal of Tropical Medicine.

We did, but the world does not need “ANOTHER” journal of tropical medicine. In fact, the 20,000 journals published every year are more than enough to publish all the world’s articles and still have space for other activities.

But wait…

Is it enough for a journal to publish articles? Is publishing a journal the only goal for a publisher? Is publishing a journal an end to a publisher’s vision? Is there no bigger picture, a bigger agenda, a grand scheme of things?

Yes, there is.

We do not need “ANOTHER” journal of tropical medicine or of any other subject for that matter. What we need is the vision of the “PUBLISHER” behind the journals.

Currently many problems exist in academic publishing. Submission to publication can take years, the process of peer review leaves a lot to be desired, grading and indexing of journals is far from perfect, authors do not get value added services, new technology has hardly been adopted, not many innovations have taken place; we can go on and on and on.

Starting Edorium Journal of Tropical Medicine or any other journal in our portfolio is not the end; it is a means to an end.

Edorium Journals aspires for a transformation and then hopes for a revolution in academic communication.

We aspire:

to transform the process of academic communication, that has been stagnant for decades.
to make the slow, difficult and expensive processes of academic communication; faster, easier, affordable and ethical.
to create an easily accessible, global corpus of scientific knowledge which can be shared, used, re-used, combined, built upon, and expanded for the betterment of our world.

Can we do any of the above without first starting Edorium Journal of Tropical Medicine and other journals?

We cannot.

Transformation can not happen from the sidelines. Only publishers can transform publishing. If we aspire to bring a change in academic publishing, Edorium Journals has to be a publisher of academic journals; even if thousands of other journals already exist.

Thousands of other journals do not matter. What matters is the realization that something needs to be done, our vision and a firm belief in our abilities to bring a change for the betterment of the academic community.

This was the bigger picture, the bigger agenda, the grand scheme of things that the physician perhaps did not see. We wish he had. He would have gained something, we would have gained a lot and everyone would have been the winner.

Edorium Journals is the only publisher that does the following: