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This paper has as its starting point the premise that it is useful for the Spanish research ecosystem to have consolidated, open journals with international influence. Evaluation of journals is important because of the role of publications in establishing research credentials. Features required to achieve a balanced and fair evaluation system are described. The tools currently available to this purpose in Spain have major limitations. A proposal based on the ISOC database is presented, providing new assessment criteria that combine the trajectory or track record, openness and internationality of the Spanish humanities and social sciences academic journals.

The aim of this contribution is to make an assessment of the results and benefits brought by Latindex for Spanish journals. The participation of the CSIC as collection center for Spain in this iberoamerican network, has allowed Latindex be a point of reference for scientific publications in this country. Since its launch, a wider dissemination and compliance of features of editorial quality is appreciated, although there are still some features with lower observance, indicating that further improvements are still required. The impact of Latindex in Spain is seen not only in improving the quality and visibility of publications, but also in the selection criteria applied to bibliographic services and scientific evaluation systems. In this last aspect there is provided a comparative analysis highlighting the differences and proposals about alternative indicators.

Discovery services constitute an element of innovation and modernization for university and research libraries. In recent years their presence has become strong in Spain, with the new generation of these systems, commonly referred to as web-scale discovery services, although it is more meaningful to categorize them as index-based discovery services. The multinational companies ProQuest and Ebsco are especially competing in the dissemination of this model, as they integrate information retrieval software with the bibliographic databases they distribute. The reasons for the success of these services are evaluated, with their advantages and disadvantages, as well as the research lines they are generating.

The central role that technology centers play in strengthening the digital humanities (DH) is highlighted. For library and information sciences, and particularly for academic and research libraries, working with DH is a strategic opportunity to enhance their cyberinfrastructure. It is argued that the development of DH in Spain will require providing technology centers specific to the humanities and social sciences.

Among the best practices of academic journals publishing, this note focusses on the NISO recommendation about the inclusion of supplemental materials. The paper justifies the need to give special treatment to these materials, which require specific metadata. Finally it relates these practices with the deep indexing trend among bibliographic database producers such as ProQuest.

For the first time, Spain has a deontological standard for all professionals in Library and Information Science, with the adoption in 2013 of a professional ethics code by SEDIC and FESABID. This is in addition to a similar document adopted by IFLA, which wasthe first international text for professionals in libraries and information services. Both initiatives help to strengthen collective identity and social prestige, also reflecting its dependence on the institutions that employ them. Finally, the codes can also be interpreted as responses to threats of “economicism” and misfeasance of technology.

This paper analyzes the weaknesses of the Humanities and Social Sciences journal publishing sector in Spain. A high percentage of these journals are published by universities and often as a result of the effort of a small team (e.g., professional association, department, research group). They often have very low numbers of papers published per year, limited impact, and inefficient management, and may find it difficult to overcome a certain image of inbreeding. Against this dominant model, the authors propose the merger, co-publishing or restructuring of current journals to improve their management and achieve greater national and international recognition.

This note aims to highlight the expanded use of the Digital Object Identifier by Spanish journals, which despite its implementation is still a pending course. The doi is a basic tool for digital document control, allowing secure permanent citations between documents. Therefore it should be considered a quality publishing factor for electronic journals. The doi system has been adopted as ISO 26324:2012, and more than 200 Spanish journals are applying it via the CrossRef consortium. Its extension affects bibliographic citation practices and several documentation areas should be interested in it.

This paper aims to reflect the growing importance of the term "digital humanities", whether defined as a disciplinary field, a training profile or a movement linked to open access. Although closely related to library and information science, digital humanities is often used in projects without the collaboration of libraries. Developing specific support centres is one way to facilitate libraries' cooperation and participation in digital humanities projects.

The publication in 2018 of volume 75 of the journal Trabajos de Prehistoria [TP] provides the occasion for a complete analysis of its contents since its iception in 1960.TP’s presence in documentary databases makes possible this contribution to the debate on the evaluation of scientific journals.The bibliometric study addresses the thematic evolution, the distribution of authorship and the impact through citations, according to the data that can be extracted from InDICEs-CSIC and Scopus.To place the journal in the context of the Spanish publications of archeology and prehistory, a comparison is made with other nine Spanish archeology journals present in Scopus and published between 2010 and 2018 by public institutions: Archivo de Prehistoria Levantina, Archivo Español de Arqueología, Complutum, Lucentum, Munibe Antropologia-Arkeologia, Pyrenae, Saguntum, SPAL, and Zephyrus. The classification by periods of the articles that appeared in those 9 years clearly defines the thematic orientation of each journal.Their comparison allows a general characterization of the patterns of scientific publication in the last decade by archeologists oriented towards Prehistory or Ancient History, respectively.Consequently, the article is also a contribution to the history of science. La publicación en 2018 del volumen 75 de la revista Trabajos de Prehistoria motiva este análisis completo de la misma (1960-2018). El artículo parte de su presencia en bases de datos documentales y se plantea como una aportación al debate sobre la evaluación de las revistas científicas. El estudio bibliométrico aborda la evolución temática, la distribución de la autoría y el impacto a través de citas, a partir de los datos que pueden extraerse de ÍnDICEs- CSIC y Scopus. Para situar la revista en el contexto de las publicaciones españolas de Arqueología y Prehistoria, se compara con otras 9 revistas de Arqueología de la península ibérica presentes en Scopus y editadas entre 2010 y 2018 por instituciones públicas: Archivo de Prehistoria Levantina, Archivo Español de Arqueología, Complutum, Lucentum, Munibe Antropologia-Arkeologia, Pyrenae, Saguntum, SPAL y Zephyrus. La clasificación por periodos de los artículos aparecidos en esos 9 años define con claridad la orientación temática de cada revista. Su comparación permite una caracterización general de las pautas de difusión científica de los arqueólogos orientados hacia la Prehistoria y/o hacia la Historia antigua en la última década. En consecuencia, el artículo es también una aportación a la historia de la ciencia.

The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of the presence and visibility in open repositories of representative institutions of Latin American Studies in Europe. In recent years, the development of the open access movement has led to the implementation of institutional repositories in most of the universities and research centers. This is a new resource of information that facilitates the dissemination of publications through the search engines, and allows automatic capture of metadata for bibliographic references for building secondary sources. The authors have conducted an exploration of these repositories in order to test the accessibility of the documents generated by the European institutions working on Latin America, and to assess the technical feasibility and the interest of a metadata harvester based on institutional repositories as a bibliographic source.

The author argues that the list of authorities, as well as a professional tool, may represent an important role in information retrieval. The purpose of this paper is to offer an example to highlight how libraries and document databases have failed or have not yet reached their full potential in the knowledge society.

The role of specialized bibliographic databases in the current environment of online information search dominated by search engines and large multidisciplinary databases is described. The databases usefulness for searching specialized information and the need for intermediation of the resource centres for research are discussed.

This paper analyzes the situation of Spanish journals in the master journal list of ISI Thomson Reuters’ citation indexes. The changes since 2007 will influence future results of bibliometric indicators of Journal Citation Reports. The presence of Spanish journals has increased significantly, especially in Social Sciences, where it started from a situation of invisibility. However, there are two important constraints in this success: the percentage of Spanish publications remains very limited and not all scientific fields will benefit equally from this progress.

This paper advocates the advantages of centralized repositories against the spread of institutional projects. The continuing emergence of new resources, open archives and digital libraries affects both academia and institutions that house ancient collections. The current “ribbon-cutting culture” should be subject to safeguards for the preservation and provision of good services. This paper lists some cooperative services in the academic world and a concrete example of digitization of an early collection of Spanish journals at the University of Connecticut.

The ISOC database is presented as an information system that is very useful for the dissemination and the study of scientific production in human and social sciences in Spain since 1975. First of all, an historical overview is proposed. Secondly, quality elements that distinguish ISOC from other documentary systems are described. Thirdly, its suitability for bibliometric studies on the scientific production of these subjects published in Spain is discussed. Finally, some data about its use by the scientific and scholarly community are presented.

Description of the work carried out by Sedic, a Spanish library association, to develop a collaborative blog as a communication tool to enable authentic, ongoing conversations over the Net.

Review of European portals specifically oriented towards the Latin American studies academic community.