To Barb Voss's problem of a potentially "fake" histarch journal
The problem of "predatory" open access journals is a big one in scholarly publishing. Companies will spring up in India, China, or Russia (or USA) with 50 or 75 journals launched overnight and take your money in order to post your journal article on line. Review process is non existent and scholars often find to their regret that these journals result in no academic credit. Even when there are editors and editorial boards listed, and there aren't always, the scholars sometimes were unaware that their names were being used.
Of course, this does not apply to all open access journals and there is more of a continuum than a finely drawn line between legit and illegit. There was a librarian @ U Colorado, Jeffrey Beale, who investigated each of these cases and came up with a list of predatory journals for scholars to check before submitting to a journal they'd never heard of, but he pulled his website down a month or two ago after receiving numerous threats and lawsuits from these publishers. There are probably some mirror websites for scholarlyoa.com if you want to check around, but they are not being updated as he was doing. Quite a loss to the academic community.
In this case, Chris de Corse is listed as one of the journal's editors. I assume he can tell you if this is a exciting new publishing outlet or whether he's never heard of them and didn't know he was listed as the journal's editor. Either one is possible. I don't know if MedCrave, the publisher of this journal, was on Beale's list or not.
Basic rule: if you've never heard of the journal from which you get an invitation like this, do some research before you send them anything. This hist arch community is pretty small and if you don't know anyone involved in the journal, it should make you suspicious.
mitch Mitchell Allen, Ph.D.Scholarly Roadside [log in to unmask] Newell Avenue #142Walnut Creek, California 94596925 930-7504ScholarlyRoadsideService.comPublishing, editorial, and administrative consulting for scholars, publishers, and academic groups
andResearch Associate, UC Berkeley Archaeological Research Facility; Scholar in Residence, Mills College
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