Excellent Peter. I had put this point to Jon Sears and his answer is below.
Disregarding AGU recommendation we are continuing to include the page
number in our citation, but of course can only do that whilst we still take
the print version as well. We are using the following format but agree
with you that inputting the DOI is prime candidate for human error.
SEARS, J. 2002 Title
Journal of Geophysical Research, 107(DI), EPA10.1 - 10.6. (DOI
10.240000000000).
I note that ASFA is putting the DOI after the title? Pauline
JON'S REPLY :
"the reasons behind the new recommended citation format
stem from the fact that articles are now published online "as ready",
and therefore need to be citeable immediately -- when print pagination
may not be finalized. AGU's policy is that the online article is the
document of record, as you may know.
We have heard some concerns over the lack of pagination in
the citation, but we feel that the DOI is the better approach.
We realize that the lack of pagination in a citation makes it a bit
more complicated to locate an article in the printed issue, but the
citation does include the volume and issue, and there is a DOI index
in each issue to help locate a specific article.
Also we have added an online DOI Resolver to help users to obtain
a "standard" citation, including pagination, which you can find at
http://agu.org/pubs/doifind.html. It is updated daily, as new articles
are published.
You may have noted that the 2002 JGR article pagination is not now
simply continuous, but reflects the order in the issue, or special
section
or subset if applicable. More information is available onine:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/e_publishing/
(Scroll down to "Some Ways Electronic Publishing Will Be Different")
At 15:00 25/04/02 -0700, you wrote:
>25 April 2002
>
>To: Marcia McNutt, AGU President
>From: Ralph Keeling, Jeff Severinghaus, Peter Brueggeman
>CC: AGU Executive Committee, AGU Publications Committee
>
>Dear Marcia,
>
>It has recently come to our attention that, in its move towards online
>publishing, AGU has done away with sequential page numbering of journal
>articles
>as of January 2002. Instead, AGU is requiring articles to be cited based on a
>20-digit character string (e.g. 10.1029/2001JA001490), known as a digital
>object
>identifier (DOI), and disallowing current scientific practice wherein articles
>are cited by volume, issue, and page numbers.
>
>The cited benefits of AGU's new system include the ability to improve online
>access, the flexibility to submit videos or other multi-media materials as
>part
>of an article, and the ability to provide electronic links to other
>articles or
>pieces. The impression given by the AGU web page
>(http://www.agu.org/pubs/e_publishing/) is that the elimination of sequential
>page numbering of journal articles was necessary to provide these benefits.
>
>In a search of current publishing practice, however, we have come up with a
>short, admittedly incomplete, list of commercial publishers and professional
>societies who continue to use sequential page numbering of journal articles in
>their transition to online publishing: American Meteorological Society,
>American Chemical Society, American Fisheries Society, Nature, Science,
>American
>Institute of Physics, Elsevier, Company of Biologists, Royal Society of
>Chemistry, University of Chicago Press, Geological Society of America, Kluwer,
>Springer Verlag, Cambridge University Press. Many of these consider their
>ejournal to be the archival record, and provide active links via an HTML
>version. We were unable to find a single example, besides AGU, of a
>scientific
>publisher abandoning sequential page numbering of journal articles in the
>transition to online publishing. We also checked with the Director of the
>Science & Engineering Library at UCSD, who was also unable to cite any
>publisher
>following AGU practice. Although examples might still be found, it is clear
>that AGU's practice is out of step with general trends in online publishing.
>
>As an emerging industry standard, the DOI clearly fulfills an essential
>need in
>electronic publishing, by providing an alternative to the awkward practice of
>referring to (unstable) web addresses. Nevertheless, the way the DOI is being
>implemented by AGU, as the unique identifier of scientific articles for
>citation
>purposes, is apparently highly eccentric.
>
>Unfortunately, AGU's decision to eliminate sequential page numbering of
>journal
>articles and to force citations to be based solely on the DOI comes at a high
>cost:
>
>(1) The use of the DOI for citations creates problems in compatibility. It is
>annoying and troublesome to have two different filing or organizational
>systems
>in use concurrently in science: AGU and everybody else. It appears that all
>science ejournal publishers except AGU refer to their publishable units, the
>article, by volume, issue, and pagination. Although the community that
>commonly
>cites AGU journals may be able to adapt, problems will remain for the wider
>community that doesn't understand the AGU system and doesn't want to be
>bothered. Some may assume that AGU publications are "grey" literature or
>still
>"in press", since their citations look non-standard among scientific
>publications. It's naive to assume that AGU's unique system will ever be
>transparent to the scientific community at large. Many institutions'
>libraries
>will continue to subscribe to AGU journals in print for reasons of
>economy; the
>DOI is awkward for anyone accessing print collections in libraries.
>
>(2) The DOI carries no information about article length, which is valuable for
>many obvious reasons.
>
>(3) Citation based on the DOI takes up extra print space. Less than 20
>characters are typically required for indicating volume number and page range
>(e.g. "24, 1654-1675" entails 13 characters). The extra length of the DOI may
>cause the citation to spill over onto a new line, thus taking up even more
>space. The difference is probably not trivial for high-profile journals like
>Science and Nature, where space is at a premium.
>
>(4) The DOI strings are likely prone to transcription error because, with so
>many characters in an unbroken string, they are hard to scan by eye. We don't
>live in a perfect copy-and-paste world, and a significant percentage of people
>will be typing in these DOIs.
>
>In summary, the decision to eliminate sequential page numbering of journal
>articles in favor of the DOI has created many problems for AGU readers and
>authors. One might be tempted to argue that these are problems of transition
>which will be reduced once people adapt to the new system. In fact, every one
>of the problems listed above will present a continuing difficulty, which will
>only be lessened if the entire scientific journal publishing enterprise
>changes
>the way it cites articles to AGU's unique approach.
>
>We therefore request that the decision at AGU to eliminate sequential page
>numbering and to require use of the DOI for citation purposes be
>revisited. The
>collective practices of scientific publishers show that sequential page
>numbering for journal/articles is possible in an online world. If, for some
>reason, AGU finds sequential page numbering to be difficult, a user-friendly
>scheme co-existing with the DOI could be developed in which various
>methods/terms are used to identify and number journal articles within
>volumes/issues without the usage of sequential pagination, like fascicules,
>parts, etc. In all likelihood, an acceptable scheme exists which entails only
>minor changes to the present AGU production process.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Ralph Keeling
>Assoc. Prof., Scripps Institution of Oceanography
>
>Jeff Severinghaus
>Assoc. Prof., Scripps Institution of Oceanography
>
>Peter Brueggeman
>Director, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library
>
>=============================================================
>Peter Brueggeman, Director, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library
>UCSD, 9500 Gilman Dr, Dept 0219, San Diego CA 92093-0219 USA
>pbrueggeman@ucsd.edu Tel 858/534-1230 Fax 858/534-5269
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Southampton Oceanography Centre
University of Southampton Waterfront Campus, European Way,
Southampton, SO14 3ZH, England
Tel: 44-(0)23 8059 6111: Fax 44-(0)23 8059 6115
email: ps@soc.soton.ac.uk ; ps2@soton.ac.uk
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