So far, seven papers have been published, and users have downloaded more than 7,000 copies, which he says represents a greater readership than is typical of printed journals. Such archives have long been popular in physics and are becoming common in other disciplines. The National Institutes of Health, for example, is discussing the creation of an online archive for papers in biomedical science . The Journal of High Energy Physics is one publication that works closely with an archive. The author of a paper in that e-print archive can submit it for publication in the journal by filling out a form on the Web and supplying the paper's identification number in the archive.
Marketing also plays a role in attracting both submissions and readers.
The institute has bought advertisements in physics periodicals and has sponsored receptions at conferences of physicists to promote the New Journal of Physics. Journals that are not backed by a publisher may not have the resources to beat the bushes for submissions. For example, the Journal of Interactive Media in Education, an electronic-only publication based at the Open University, in Britain, received about a dozen submissions last year, says Simon Buckingham Shum, one of the journal's editors and a researcher at the university's Knowledge Media Institute. But he and the rest of the journal's editors, all of whom are volunteers, haven't had the time this year to solicit manuscripts aggressively. Without a publisher to maintain the journal's visibility, submissions to it have dropped off, he says.