Here comes VAMP, a new open-access journal of vertebrate palaeontology
March 10, 2015
Just launched: a new open-access journal of vertebrate paleontology, brought to you by the University of Alberta, Canada! It’s called VAMP (Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology), and it charges no APC. Here’s a illustration from one of the two articles in its first issue.
Holmes (2014:fig 12A). Synsacrum and pelvis of Chasmosaurus belli (ROM 843) in dorsal view.
VAMP uses the canonical open-access licence, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC By), which means it fulfils both the letter and the spirit of the Budapest Open Access Initiative’s definition of OA.
It’s great that we in vertebrate palaeontology can add this journal to the roster of OA journals in our field, already including Palaeontologia Electronica, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, Palarch’s Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, The Fossil Record and others. (Plus of course there is lots of vertebrate palaeontology in PLOS ONE and PeerJ.) I think that as a field, we are ahead of the curve in making the transition towards an all-OA literature.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
March 11, 2015 at 8:56 am
2104 – uber Early Online View article?
March 11, 2015 at 9:28 am
The date 2014 does seem to be correct, going on the information at the bottom of the first page of the PDF. Perhaps the journal has been up for a few months and has only just come to our attention?
March 11, 2015 at 11:07 am
Both articles state the CC licence is CC-BY-NC-ND, although the instructions do quote CC-BY.
March 11, 2015 at 11:31 am
Correct. The journal launched using CC By-NC-ND. I wrote to the editor yesterday to discuss this, and the journal has now changed to use CC By going forward, but of course they can’t retroactively change the licence under which the first two articles were published — not without first gaining the authors’ consent. So for now, at least, those articles remain NC-ND. But future ones will not be.
March 11, 2015 at 12:48 pm
Yes, the journal launched last summer. (I posted about it several times on Facebook/Twitter, so I’m glad to see that it’s getting some wider traction now!) I am sure they would be delighted to have a larger influx of papers!
March 11, 2015 at 1:00 pm
The journal was released a few months ago now. Word is just slow to spread. Thanks for the boost, Mike! (I’m an editor at VAMP.)
March 11, 2015 at 1:24 pm
Yes, Jordan, I noticed you were the handling editor on the ceratopsian paper.
March 11, 2015 at 5:02 pm
I’ve been trying to get this journal known since July when I heard about it from the editor, but it has been slow to work. Glad my posts have finally been noticed!
March 11, 2015 at 5:11 pm
Sorry to be so slow — it was this tweet that put me onto it. Hopefully the word will spread.
March 11, 2015 at 7:45 pm
Great – will VAMP accept papers on fossil vertebrate preparation?
March 11, 2015 at 10:17 pm
I’ve just browsed the site and read a bit of the journal PDF. From what I have read, this journal is promising. Thanks for letting me know about it :D
March 11, 2015 at 10:38 pm
thanks for the comments and spreading the word for VAMP. I retroactively changed the licence to CC By for the (only two) previously published articles (with authors’ permission; the pdfs will not be modified, but the site archive has been).
As for vertebrate preparation, it would depend on the paper but it sounds reasonable – please send me an e-mail with more details.
Alison Murray, senior editor VAMP