Abstract
Scientific publishing in mathematics and physics (as in other exact sciences) is rapidly changing, and it is important to identify and predict relevant changes and their potential consequences. To understand such changes, the authors begin with a brief history of scientific publishing and the rise of digital publishing. The study presents a qualitative comparison of the basic features of traditional and digital forms of publications (books, journals, libraries and databases, archives, webinars, forums, digital learning materials), on the basis of which relevant changes (specific for mathematics and physics) are identified and predicted. Several tables describing the most popular and useful scientific online tools for scientists, professors, students, and engineers are listed.
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Notes
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London is the first scientific journal in the world [16].
However, there are many non-network electronic publications (e.g., encyclopedias, technical and reference publications on CD and DVD).
The list of online encyclopedias is available at www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_encyclopedias.
The list of academic databases and search engines available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines.
Since January 2011, Amazon sales of e-books surpasses the print books sales due to the sales growth of digital tablets and e-book readers.
The description of the project is available at http://books.google.de/googlebooks/about.html.
The Rights MEtadata for Open archiving (RoMEO) database (www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php), is maintained by the SHERPA project and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), based at the University of Nottingham.
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Acknowledgments
This work was partly supported by the Mexican Department of Public Education (SEP) and the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) under the grant No. 55463.
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Shingareva, I., Lizárraga-Celaya, C. Relevant Changes in Scientific Publishing in Mathematics and Physics. Pub Res Q 28, 294–306 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-012-9300-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-012-9300-5