Western Birds, the quarterly journal of Western Field Ornithologists (WFO), has been a popular source of scientific insight for the ornithological community for over fifty years. While the journal and its archive are freely available to WFO members, the articles in Western Birds are often inaccessible to those outside WFO searching the scientific literature. This is because of the way that most people now peruse the literature: overwhelmingly, most literature searches are now made using Google Scholar’s powerful search engine. Google Scholar’s ‘web crawlers’ efficiently index and compile the information on journal websites, but Scholar’s tools can only access certain web platforms. Unfortunately, we now understand that Western Birds’ current website does not support indexing by Google Scholar. This means that most articles published in Western Birds are essentially invisible to those browsing the scientific literature, a fact that disserves the journal, its authors, and the birds we aim to conserve.
To remedy this problem, WFO is transitioning Western Birds’ website to a new web platform, one which specifically facilitates discovery by search engines like Google Scholar. Open Journal Systems (OJS) is a software platform created by the Public Knowledge Project, a non-profit dedicated to improving access to scientific literature. WFO has enlisted the service of a company to transition Western Birds’ website to an OJS platform: article by article, a PDF of each publication in Western Birds’ archive is being added to our new OJS-supported website, along with each article’s relevant metadata (title, authors, page numbers, year, issue, etc.). This work is nearing completion and will result in all articles from Western Birds being freely discoverable and accessible to all via Google Scholar. Importantly, this transition will also allow WFO to manage and control the archive, maintaining an important independence in the process. This transition is not free—the creation of the new website and transition of the archive will cost just under $10,000—but we believe that this investment is a long overdue step to improve the visibility of Western Birds and enhance the standing of the journal and the great research that WFO supports. We hope to unveil the new website for Western Birds within the next few months.
If you have any questions or concerns about this process, please feel free to reach out to Publications Committee chair Dan Ruthrauff at drruthrauff@gmail.com.
November 2025 | Dan Ruthrauff, WFO Vice President