AN EVALUATION STUDY OF DIRECTORIES OF OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNALS

Abstract

The cost of scholarly journals has been increasing at a rate faster than the inflation rate for several decades. This chronic inflation is caused by several factors. Each journal title publishes unique research findings and as a result is a unique commodity and as a result cannot be replaced in an academic library collection by another less expensive journal on the same subject as one could with many commodities. The publisher thus has the ability to act as a monopolist. The highest quality journals are often expected and demanded by scholars to include in their institution's library collections. This leads to price inelasticity for these higher quality journals. An additional problem is a dramatic increase in the volume of research literature and increasing specialization of that research, academic subfields. This includes a growth the number of scholar and increases potential demand for these journals. Currency Exchange rates can serve to increase the unpredictability of serial prices throughout the world. For example, many of the publishers of scientific journals are in Europe and the United States dollar the prices of scholarly journals varying in relation to this fluctuation. At the same time funds available to purchase journals are often decreasing in real terms. Libraries have seen collections budgets decline in real terms compared to the United States Periodical Price index. As well as other library expenditures such as computers and networking equipment. During the last few years free online digital information sources like e- journal, e- books, and edatabases have increased considerably. The traditional library systems are going to transform into Digital Library Systems. Digital Library and services through electronic document is the basic & important issue of modern library concept.