SIAM Publications: Stronger After the Pandemic

2022 saw the world finally begin to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. The SIAM Publications team was once again able to meet face-to-face with our communities—including SIAM book authors, journal editors, and conference attendees—after several years of virtual interactions. The virtual Zoom world persists and will surely continue to do so, as it enables greater attendance for some meetings. Nevertheless, the valuable in-person conversations over the last year reminded us of what we’ve been missing during lockdown (even if some social skills had to be relearned…).

Following a surge in 2020 and 2021 journal submissions that was likely driven by researchers who finished writing papers while they were stuck at home, 2022 saw a return to the pre-pandemic submission levels of 2019 — though some SIAM journals still experienced increases.

As always, we thankfully acknowledge the tireless work of our journal editors and editorial support staff, who carefully handle the healthy flow of submissions and ensure that SIAM journals maintain their prestigious publication standard. The high regard in which SIAM journals are held is again reflected in the strong increase of article downloads; this number was up 12 percent in 2022, following a 10 percent increase in 2021. The continually growing demand for SIAM journals is fantastic to see.

The SIAM Publications Library—which hosts SIAM journal, e-book, and proceedings content—received an upgrade in early 2022 (see Figure 1). This renovation was the culmination of a three-year project that involved an army of internal staff, vendor staff, volunteers, and SIAM members; thank you to everyone who provided feedback and input.

New features on the modernized platform include a responsive design, improved search (with typeahead functionality), and related content recommendations. The upgrade will also allow us to begin publishing Extensible Markup Language (XML) full-text versions of SIAM content (in addition to PDFs), launch a new integrated online bookstore, and offer single sign-on for SIAM members. We hope that you’ve been enjoying the new platform thus far; if you have any feedback or ideas for further development, please email us at service@siam.org. Community input will help guide future iterations.

2023 brings editor-in-chief (EIC) transitions for two of SIAM’s journals (see Figure 2). We extend our sincere thanks to the outgoing EICs, Desmond Higham (University of Edinburgh) and Daniel Král (Masaryk University), for their excellent leadership over the past six years and welcome their successors. Stanislav Živný (University of Oxford) assumed the role of EIC for the SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics (SIDMA) on January 1, while Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb (University of Cambridge) will take the reins at SIAM Review (SIREV) on April 1.

The SIAM Books program published at a robust rate in 2022, despite the ongoing industry-wide issues with paper shortages and printing. Last year’s noteworthy titles included An Applied Mathematician’s Apology by Nick Trefethen and How to Be Creative: A Practical Guide for the Mathematical Sciences by Nicholas Higham and Dennis Sherwood. The latter text offers ideas and strategies for maximizing creativity in a variety of contexts. These titles reflect SIAM’s goal to publish more general interest books, in addition to our many high-quality monographs and textbooks. If you have an idea for a book project, please contact Elizabeth Greenspan (executive editor of SIAM Books) at greenspan@siam.org.

SIAM Journals and Open Access Funder Mandates

As a reminder, all SIAM journals are already fully compliant with the European Plan S and U.K. Research and Innovation (UKRI) funder mandates via the green open access routes. More information is available online. 

2022 saw the announcement of another significant funder mandate; the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy released a new public access memo called the Nelson Memo. A key change from the 2013 Holdren Memo is the elimination of the 12-month embargo for federally funded work. Each U.S. federal agency must now draft an updated public access policy that will go into effect by the end of December 2025, but SIAM authors will likely be able to comply via a green open access route. We will provide confirmation once the federal policies are published.

Please Recommend SIAM Journals and E-books to Your Libraries

Faculty support for SIAM journals and e-books is absolutely vital when libraries select resources to renew or add to their holdings. Since library budgets are under pressure and increasingly dominated by large commercial publishers, your voice as a faculty member matters. If you feel comfortable doing so, please talk to your institution’s librarian and emphasize the importance of SIAM journals and e-books for your research and teaching endeavors. SIAM is a proud independent nonprofit society publisher, and library support is critical to ensuring that SIAM publications remain in strong health and maintain the highest standards of quality and service for the applied mathematics, computational science, and data science community.

Your own usage of SIAM journals also matters. Librarians monitor article downloads when deciding whether to renew resources, so please encourage your students and colleagues to always download SIAM articles from the SIAM Publications Library when they are logged into their institutions (whether remotely or by IP address when on campus). Every SIAM article download demonstrates the value of SIAM resources at all institutions.

I look forward to more opportunities to meet many of you at SIAM conferences this year. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to me at bowling@siam.org with any questions or comments.