(a) Mission and values

Nordicum-Mediterraneum is an international, multi- and interdisciplinary forum for the presentation, discussion and exchange of ideas, studies and resources dealing with Mediterranean and Nordic matters. In particular, though by no means exclusively, Nordicum-Mediterraneum wishes to be a venue for the exploration of the ties between Iceland and Italy: historical, cultural, economic, political, scientific, religious and artistic.

Above all else, Nordicum-Mediterraneum wishes to foster the awareness and the understanding concerning the common origins, intertwined traditions and shared problematics of the Eurasian communities of the North — hence Nordicum — and of the South — hence Mediterraneum. In its beginning, the journal published material dealing exclusively with such commonalities, intertwining and shared elements.

It is the firm belief of the journal’s editors that culture is a public good and, as such, it must be available to the public as easily and as economically as possible. Publishing Nordicum-Mediterraneum as an open-access journal in the sole electronic format is meant to serve this twofold goal, which translates as well into a much-reduced environmental impact, especially given Iceland’s large reliance on geothermal and hydroelectric power plants.

Thus, rather than mimicking standard paper publications, the electronic character of the journal is intentionally highlighted by choice of font, overall look and user interaction, e.g., font-resizing options, scroll-down browsing in lieu of a virtual table of contents, in-text hyperlinks, restricted log-in area for authors, etc.

No processing or submission charges apply at any point whatsoever of the editorial and/or publication activities of the journal.  By charging no fees on either its readers or its contributors, Nordicum-Mediterraneum rejects the predatory editorial practices that are, unfortunately, still common in academic publishing, whether paper-based or electronic.

 

 

(b) History and integrations

Originally a brainchild of Dr Maurizio Tani, who had been teaching Italian language and culture at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik (Háskóli Íslands), the journal was formally established and coordinated ab ovo by Prof Giorgio Baruchello of the University of Akureyri in 2005. The first issue was released in the Spring of the following year.

Designed for free, open, online access and consultation, Nordicum-Mediterraneum pioneered web-based open-access scholarship in Iceland and, for many years, it has been listed on the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) of Lund University Libraries, the editorial standards of which Nordicum-Mediterraneum strives to fulfil to the best of its abilities and knowledge.

As of 2008, upon pressure by its readership, Nordicum-Mediterraneum started including works dealing with Nordic and Mediterranean issues at large, or that could be of interest to our Nordic and Mediterranean audiences.

As of issue 5(1)/2010 of the journal, and as already done for the special issue 1(2)/2006, fictional page numbers are no longer assigned to each contribution. All major scholarly citation standards (e.g. APA) acknowledge this practice of e-publishing and, as referencing is concerned, they recommend to refer to non-page-numbered electronic sources by: author, title, year of publication, url and, for in-text quotations, paragraph or sub-section.

As of April 2021, Nordicum-Mediterraneum commenced a close collaboration with the Law Faculty of the University of Akureyri, i.e., the journal’s publisher. By so doing, Nordicum-Mediterraneum aims at making the journal also a free, electronic and open-access scholarly venue for peer-reviewed works on and by Iceland’s legal community and reality, in both Icelandic and English.

As of 2023, then, two regular issues of Nordicum-Mediterraneum are to be published every year: one continuing the journal’s interdisciplinary tradition (due in March) and another devoted to legal scholarship alone (by the end of the year). If necessary, however, only either of them may appear, or a combination of the two. Additional special editions about particular topics and/or events are published as well, without a specific schedule.

 

 

(c) Copyright and licensing

In general, the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC-BY-SA 4.0 international) is preferred for the material published in Nordicum-Mediterraneum, in order to maximise its dissemination and facilitate its integration with popular online archives and databases (e.g., Wikipedia). Fundamentally, the authors retain copyright and any other publishing right over their own material, including republication, provided that they acknowledge the original publication in Nordicum-Mediterraneum. However, deviations and exceptions may occur, in consultation with the editors. 

Because of the enduring copyright problematics associated with the use of Artificial Intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT), anyone interested in submitting a manuscript to Nordicum-Mediterraneum for evaluation should simply abstain from making use of it at any and all stages of production of their work.

Nordicum-Mediterraneum is published by the University of Akureyri, which is the second largest State university in Iceland (Háskólinn á Akureyri). The university’s IT experts serve as  webmasters since 2016. Before that time, Mr Fabrizio Veneziano of Schiller International University (Paris, France) was the sole and very first webmaster, who must be duly credited for the journal’s unique format and aesthetics. The journal’s ISSN code is: 1670-6242.

 

 

(d) Indexing and storage

As stated, the journal is indexed internationally on Lund University Libraries’ Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), but it has also been available for many years on EBSCO’s Humanities International Index, and it is recognised by Iceland‘s and Norway’s (NSD) national evaluation systems of university-based research, The Danish Bibliometric Research Indicator (BFI), and the Finnish Publication Forum (JUFO), which has become the leading bibliometric standard across Nordic academia.

All materials published in Nordicum-Mediterraneum from 2006 through 2014 have also been deposited, itemised and stored on the digital archive Skemman of Iceland’s National Library, so as to ensure their long-term safe-keeping, identifiability and availability. A similar arrangement for all ensuing publications is currently being discussed.