What is a nursing journal worth?

AORN Journal,  June, 2006  by Nancy J. Girard

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Over the years, in survey after survey and focus group after focus group, AORN members have told us that one of the most valuable and tangible benefits of their AORN membership is their subscription to the AORN Journal. Its worth to members appears to be very high.

Many AORN members also are members of the American Nurses Association (ANA). These members, like other ANA members, are now asking themselves the question, "What is a journal worth?" This is not a rhetorical question.

LOSS OF AN ASSOCIATION JOURNAL

The American Journal of Nursing (AJN) no longer will be the official journal of the ANA. If dedicated, long-time readers want to continue to receive the AJN, they now will have to subscribe to it through its publishers.

Nurses today are so busy that they tend to read only a few journals. That makes it more difficult for a journal that is independent from a professional organization to remain in circulation. Many journals are discontinued if the number of subscribers is insufficient to support them. This happened to the last journal of which I was editor, Seminars in Perioperative Nursing. The journal was targeted to perioperative advanced practice nurses and had excellent authors and articles. After 10 years, however, the subscription numbers were not high enough to sustain its continued publication, and the journal was discontinued.

Ten years ago, ANA sold the AJN to a publishing company with the agreement that the journal would remain the official publication of the organization and be distributed free to ANA members for the contracted period. The contract ends this year, and negotiations for renewing the contract were not successful. The ANA will offer a new periodical, American Nurse Today, as a membership benefit, and it will replace the AJN as the official association publication. (1)

The loss of the historic and longtime association between the ANA and the AJN may not result in the permanent loss of the journal, but the journal is likely to change. Members of the International Association of Nurse Editors have drafted a statement in response to the ANA's decision to discontinue its affiliation with the AJN, and it has been signed by a large number of US and international nurse editors. The statement expresses our concern about the "implications this decision holds for ANA, AJN, and the nursing profession" (2) and our belief that the new publication "cannot be expect-ed to substitute for the reputation, history, leadership, educational value, and practice-changing capacity of AJN." (2) The letter reads, in part,

   AJN provides members
   and nonmembers with
   authoritative, credible, reliable, peer-reviewed,
   evidence-based, and useful
   content, including information,
   research, news, and analysis of
   issues in nursing practice, education,
   and policy. And by virtue of its
   stature as a long-established, highly
   respected, widely read and
   cited professional journal,
   AJN is able to bring nursing's
   perspective to a wide
   audience that extends
   be yond its readership and
   beyond nursing.... Simply
   put, the profession is
   poorly served by separating
   the professional journal
   from the professional
   as sociation.

This statement has been sent to the ANA board of directors for future consideration.

AORN's OFFICIAL PUBLICATION

As I announced in my column last month, AORN recently entered into a publishing partnership with Elsevier. The AORN Journal is still owned by AORN, and it will continue to be the official publication of AORN and provided as a member benefit. It is of utmost importance that members find value in the publication. Does it fit your needs? Do the articles speak to your setting? What would you add or take out to make it more useful?

We continue to seek readers' counsel to improve the quality and the timeliness of the Journal's offerings, and we encourage perioperative nurse authors to write the important content that makes the Journal a respected and valued source of information. We are only an e-mail away. Keep in touch to help us ensure that the Journal remains a worthwhile member publication.

NANCY J. GIRARD

RN, PHD, FAAN

EDITOR

NOTES

(1.) "American Nurse Today: Frequently asked questions," ANA Nursing World, http:// www.nursingworld.org/anajour nal/ (accessed 28 April 2006).

(2.) "A statement by nurse editors in response to ANA's decision to discontinue its affiliation with the American Journal of Nursing," (np: INANE, 2006).

COPYRIGHT 2006 Association of Operating Room Nurses, Inc.
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