Collaboration praised for excellence

A collaborative effort at the University of St Andrews has been awarded a prestigious award in recognition of ‘excellence in publishing standards’.

Dr Manfredi La Manna of the Department of Economics and Jean Young of the University Library, have been awarded an Outstanding Paper Award by a leading academic press publisher.

The 2003 award from international publishers Emerald, is for a joint paper co-authored by the pair and is the result of a successful collaboration between two quite different areas of specialism.

Dr La Manna is a Reader in Economics and chief organiser of the Electronic Learned Society for Social Sciences (ELSSS), a non- profit organisation aimed at reforming academic journal publishing.

Jean Young is part of the University Library’s Management Team and was Head of Reference and Information Services at the time of receiving the award. It is the first time that there has been such a collaboration between the Department of Economics and the University Library at St Andrews.

Dr La Manna said: “Jean and I are delighted that the award may have contributed in highlighting the critical role that academics and librarians acting jointly can play in reforming the process of dissemination of scientific and scholarly research.”

The prestigious Emerald Literati Club Awards recognise author and editor excellence and are awarded annually by the leading international publisher Emerald, who specialise in the library and information sciences (LIS) and management sectors.

Dr La Manna and Ms Young were awarded for a paper on the ELSSS, which appeared in the Emerald- published journal ‘Interlending & Document Supply’ last year.

The ELSSS envisages a new concept of scholarly and scientific journal: conceived and managed by academics themselves and intended as a platform for scientific and scholarly debate. It is aimed at providing direct competition to high-priced commercial publications and designed to maximise research productivity. It will launch its first journal this year after a process of collaboration with university scientists and librarians over five continents.

At the presentation, Niki Haunch, Head of Author Relations for Emerald, commented, “The Emerald Literati Awards are presented for papers that convey a new thought or concept in an excellent way to its audience as Dr La Manna and Ms Jean M Young’s paper did.”

ENDS NOTE TO EDITORS:

The award-winning paper ‘The electronic society for social scientists: from journals as documents to journals as knowledge exchanges’, by Dr La Manna and Jean Young, appeared in the journal ‘Interlibrary lending & Document Supply’ in 2002.

Issued by Beattie Media On behalf of the University of St Andrews Contact Gayle Cook on 01334 467227, mobile 07900 050 103, or email [email protected] Ref: Electronic Society pr 161203 View the latest University news at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk