Nova Science Publishers is an

academic publisher Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publ ...

of books, encyclopedias,

handbook A handbook is a type of reference work, or other collection of instructions, that is intended to provide ready reference. The term originally applied to a small or portable book containing information useful for its owner, but the ''Oxford Engl ...

e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

s and journals, based in

Hauppauge, New York Hauppauge ( ) is a Hamlet (New York), hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Administrative divisions of New York#Town, towns of Islip, New York, Islip and Smithtown, New York, Smithtown in Suffolk County, New York on Long Island. The popu ...

. It was founded in 1985. A prolific publisher of books, Nova has received criticism from librarians for not always subjecting its publications to

academic peer review Scholarly peer review or academic peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed (usually anonymously) by experts (or "peers") in the same field. Peer review is ...

and for republishing

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

book chapters and freely-accessible government publications at high prices.

Overview

The company was founded in New York by Frank Columbus, former

senior editor A managing editor (ME) is a senior member of a publication's management team. Typically, the managing editor reports directly to the editor-in-chief and oversees all aspects of the publication. United States In the United States, a managing edito ...

of Plenum Publishing. His wife, Nadya Columbus, took over the firm operations upon his death in 2010. While the firm publishes works in several fields of

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

, most of its publications cover the fields of

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

, and

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

. As of February 2018, Nova listed 100 currently published journals.Journal catalog page
Retrieved January 9, 2016 Since 2021, their new book publications include

Digital Object Identifiers A digital object identifier (DOI) is a persistent identifier or handle used to uniquely identify various objects, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). DOIs are an implementation of the Handle System; they ...

. As of 2022, Nova was approved in the Norwegian register for scientific journals, series and publishers, published by the

Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe *Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway *Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including the ...

Rankings

Nova is included in the

Book Citation Index The Book Citation Index (BCI, BKCI) is an online subscription-based scientific citation indexing service maintained by Clarivate Analytics and is part of the Web of Science Core Collection. It was first launched in 2011 and indexes over 60,000 edi ...

. In terms of number of books published from 2005 to 2012, Nova ranked 4th. They ranked in the top three in 8 of 14 scientific fields including engineering, clinical medicine,

human biology Human biology is an interdisciplinary area of academic study that examines humans through the influences and interplay of many diverse fields such as genetics, evolution, physiology, anatomy, epidemiology, anthropology, human ecology, ecology, hum ...

, animal and plant biology,

geosciences Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four sphere ...

, social science medicine, health, chemistry, physics, and astronomy), and ranked as the 5th most prolific book publisher from 2009-2013, ranking 3rd in Engineering and Technology and 2nd in Science by numbers of books published. However, it had the lowest

citation impact Citation impact is a measure of how many times an academic journal article or book or author is cited by other articles, books or authors. Citation counts are interpreted as measures of the impact or influence of academic work and have given rise ...

among the five most prolific publishers in both fields. In a 2017 ranking study of book publishers, Nova was ranked high on number of books published, but low on number of citations per book. In 2018, it was ranked #13 on the global main publishers list of political sciences during the last 5 years. In a 2011 report of twenty-one international social-science book publishers that determined penetration on international markets and mention of books in international science index systems, Nova was ranked #17. A 2017 survey of national and international databases of scholarly book publishers, including the

Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...

CRIStin CRIStin (Current Research Information System in Norway) is the national research information system of Norway, and is owned by the Royal Ministry of Education and Research. CRIStin documents all scholarly publications by Norwegian researchers, an ...

, JUFO, VIRTA, and SPI, identified Nova as one of a "core of publishers that are indexed in all five" of the information systems surveyed. This "core" contained 46 out of the 3,765 publishers identified.

Criticism

Nova has been criticized by librarians for not always evaluating authors through the academic peer review process and for republishing old public domain book chapters and freely-accessible government reports at high prices.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.novapublishers.com/ Academic publishing companies Publishing companies of the United States 1985 establishments in New York (state) Publishing companies established in 1985 Companies based in New York City