Central Valley Birds News: Major Advances!
There is lots of exciting news to report regarding our flagship journal. A primary focus of the Central Valley Bird Club’s recent Strategic Plan is to improve the Club’s visibility and our journal’s accessibility to the world. Thanks to our dedicated Board members and other key members, we have achieved major milestones in these areas.
New Web Site
As members have been informed elsewhere, we have completely revised the club web site (https://cvbirds.org). For Central Valley Birds, that means finally we have recent back issues and all their individual articles posted to the web site. The older backlog will be continually added over the next six months. Check it out!
Free and Full, Open Access
With the new web site, we are now able to implement our new free and full open access policy for the journal. This means anyone, members or non-members, can access the journal issues and individual articles as soon as they are published. We hope this greater availability will increase the visibility of our articles, encourage more authors to submit articles, and attract new members. Open access means that people do not have to join the bird club to get the benefit of the journal. Yet we depend on member dues to support our operations, so we encourage you to renew through your attendance at the Central Valley Birding Symposium or when renewal reminders are sent out, and to help us recruit new members.
Digital Subscription Option
The ready availability of the journal in digital form means that we can now offer members the benefit of opting for a digital subscription to Central Valley Birds. In addition to reducing the waste stream, opting out of the printed version of the journal will reduce costs for printing and mailing, which will make more funds available for other club programs, such as student research grants and youth camp scholarships. But if you still prefer a printed copy, we plan to continue to provide it. You can let us know if you would like to opt out by contacting us at: https://cvbirds.org/contact-us/.
Higher Net Visibility
Another club communications goal has been to increase the visibility (i.e., search priority) of Central Valley Birds articles. We have taken a MAJOR step forward in increasing our net presence. The process is complicated and has been daunting to complete, but we are nearly there. We have worked with Open Journal Systems to host the journal, which allows articles to be searchable on Google Scholar, the predominant platform used by scientists. In addition, we are assigning a “doi” number (digital object identifier”) to each article that provides a permanent, stable link to locate them. Low net visibility has in the past been cited as a reason for reluctance of academics to submit to our journal. That is fixed now, so our articles will receive more attention and that should draw more author submissions to us.
All of these activities took a massive amount of work by dedicated club volunteers. Major contributors included Pat Bacchetti, Lily Douglas, Chris Swarth, Ed Pandolfino, Frances Oliver, Susie Nishio, Tyler Ball, John Harris, and contractor Scott Hutchings (CryBaby Design). Thanks to all of you for positioning Central Valley Birds for a bright and productive future!
Dan Airola, Editor
This announcement appeared in Vol. 28, No. 2&3, 2025
