Goals

Contemporary Herpetology (CH) is a nonprofit, electronic journal designed to facilitate the dissemination of herpetological information and was established in 1997 at the Southeastern Louisiana University. CH maintains high scientific standards; submitted articles must pass peer-review prior to publication. CH will publish articles covering all aspects of herpetology, including ecology, ethology, systematics, conservation biology, and physiology. CH will also publish reviews, monographs, points-of-view, and faunistic surveys of poorly-known areas.

The CH Information Series (CHIS) will also publish translations, species lists, keys, and other publications that are of value to herpetologists, but that are not likely to be published in other journals.

Benefits

Papers will be formatted as typeset PDF files with pagination. Previously only HTML format was used, which did not include pagination. Now that PDF formats can accommodate videos, sound files and similar multimedia, we have chosen to adopt this as the native format for CH. We anticipate that this change will generate new interest in publishing in CH.

Papers previously published as web pages will always be available in the HTML format in which they were first published, but will gradually be converted to the PDF format as well.

Because CH has no print version, our costs of production are trivial. Thus we impose no limits upon length, and we encourage the use of color photography, color graphics or other similar enhancements. Nevertheless, papers should be written in an efficient style and are still edited for content and unnecessary length. The PDF format can be disseminated, printed out, and stored more easily.

PDF files are produced immediately after articles are accepted for publication. Proofs are sent out to the corresponding author. As soon as the proofs return, articles will be made available for free. Since each article is published as an issue, CH does not stick to regular publication dates (e.g. quarterly publishing) as other periodicals.

Average time from acceptance to publication for some herpetological journals (as of 18 April 1997):

One of the most dramatic advantages of electronic publishing is the ease with which graphics as well as audio and full-motion video material can be embedded in articles. Internet technology provides graphics capabilities--such as full-motion video, full-color digital photography, computer simulations, and audio playback--that are either impossible or prohibitively expensive in print journals.

Other Issues

Citing Contemporary Herpetology articles

We suggest the following style for citing CH (or CHIS) articles:

SMITH, H. M., C. CHISZAR, J. T. COLLINS, AND F. VAN BREUKELEN. 1998. The taxonomic status of the Wyoming toad, Bufo baxteri Porter. Contemporary Herpetology 1998(1): 1–5.

Recognition by Abstracting Organizations