Easter journals

• Post by: admin
• November 10, 2009
• No Comment

Sometimes, when chasing up a reference, I come across a journal websites which I haven’t used before. Once I find the desired article, I usually read the abstract and then proceed to downloading the paper in PDF format. One would think that this is the most common procedure for visitors to a journal website. Alas, this is not always easy. Take for example the following screenshot taken from the American Institute of Physic’s Journal of Mathematical Physics website:

Can you spot the PDF download link? Tricky, isn’t it? Just like looking for easter eggs. That’s maybe because the PDF button is only 20×20 pixel large. What makes it even worse is that there is no text to accompany it, which would allow a simple search for “pdf” in your browser. Interestingly, 12 out of the 14 (!) “full text options” for this article—among them for example “erratum alert”, or “blog this article”—do have an alternative text link. One can only assume that the publisher wants to maximize the time we spend on their site to maybe even click one of these other links out of frustration of not finding the PDF download.

Here’s my proposed fix to that: