A Glance in the Rearview Mirror While Driving MAA Periodicals Forward

By: Bonnie Ponce, MAA Managing Editor, Journals

3 Years of Partner Publishing with Taylor & Francis Group
In 2018 the Mathematical Association of America chose a new path for their MAA Periodicals by partnering with Taylor & Francis Group. We ventured on this path in 2016 when it was clear that the landscape of scholarly publishing was fundamentally changing from society centered publishing to author centered publishing with open access options. The partnership with T&F has expanded our global reach, provided a better online experience for our readers, curated themed special issues, and provided a more accurate way to track popular articles.

Expanding our reach in overseas markets is a huge growth step for the MAA. But how many inroads have we made into this goal?

Growth into a Global Audience
Taylor & Francis has helped us expand our readership by 50% in the last two years. We have seen substantial growth in Asia, India, and Europe, largely through institutional subscriptions. We also see an increase in article downloads. In 2018, we had a total of 163,063 articles downloaded from The American Mathematical Monthly, Mathematics Magazine, The College Mathematics Journal, and Math Horizons. In 2019, we ended the year with a total of 251,049 article downloads across all four periodicals. We are excited by the continued growth in these new markets.

Simplified Online Navigation
The T&F Online portal available to MAA members is extremely user-friendly. Taylor & Francis has added new journals that are available to all MAA members including Chance, Primus, the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, the American Journal of Mathematical and Management Sciences, and most recently added, Cryptologia. The additional journals appear on the T&F Online page for MAA members. 

Digital Special Issues
A wonderful and exciting benefit of our partnership is the ability to create thematic special issues for online viewing. In March 2019, the editors curated a celebratory Pi-themed issue in honor of Pi Day. In the fall of 2019, we ran another special issue focused on the Fibonacci sequence. This curated digital issue is still available to members under “More from the MAA" in the Taylor & Francis Online member portal. In early 2020,  we provided an issue focusing on the intersection of Mathematics and the Arts. This issue featured articles from MAA periodicals and the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts.  Both issues were well received and the MAA continues to work with Taylor & Francis on additional curated thematic digital special issues.  Currently, we have a special digital issue remembering the mathematical work of Richard K. Guy and John Horton Conway.  And look for our new special digital issue on voting theory and gerrymandering coming in September!

Top downloaded articles
Are you interested in what everyone else is reading?  Curl up with a popular read. The following articles were the most downloaded journal articles in 2019.

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