In the decades after the Second World War, learned society publishers struggled to cope with the expanding output of scientific research and the increased involvement of commercial publishers in the business of publishing research journals. Could learned society journals survive economically in the postwar world, against this competition? Or was the emergence of a sales-based commercial model of publishing – in contrast to the traditional model of subsidized journal publishing – an opportunity to transform the often-fragile finances of learned societies? But there was also an existential threat: if commercial firms could successfully publish scientific journals, were learned society publishers no longer needed? This paper investigates how British learned society publishers adjusted to the new economic realities of the postwar world, through an investigation of the activities organized by the Royal Society of London and the Nuffield Foundation, culminating in the 1963 report Self-Help for Learned Journals. It reveals the postwar decades as the time when scientific research became something to be commodified and sold to libraries, rather than circulated as part of a scholarly mission. It will be essential reading for all those campaigning to transition academic publishing – including learned society publishing – away from the sales-based model once again.
...More
Article
Collins, Peter;
(2010)
A Royal Society for Technology
(/isis/citation/CBB001022752/)
Article
Pounds, Ken;
(2010)
The Royal Society's Formative Role in UK Space Research
(/isis/citation/CBB001022754/)
Article
Bodmer, Walter;
(2010)
Public Understanding of Science: The BA, the Royal Society and COPUS
(/isis/citation/CBB001022761/)
Article
Ferry, Georgina;
(2010)
The Exception and the Rule: Women and the Royal Society 1945--2010
(/isis/citation/CBB001022762/)
Article
Hemmen, George E.;
(2010)
Royal Society Expeditions in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001022756/)
Article
Snowden, Christopher M.;
(2010)
Technological Innovation in Industry and the Role of the Royal Society
(/isis/citation/CBB001022753/)
Article
Collins, Peter;
(2010)
A Role in Running UK Science?
(/isis/citation/CBB001022758/)
Article
J.t.h. Connor;
(2022)
Medical History Memorialized: The Origins and First Decade of the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History / Bulletin canadien d’histoire de la médecine (1979–94)
(/isis/citation/CBB479267378/)
Article
Nick Lomb;
(2018)
Scientific Society Journals: the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia
(/isis/citation/CBB919414542/)
Chapter
Clinkman, Daniel E.;
(2012)
The Civil-Military Enlightenment in Britain: Links between the Royal Society of London and the British Military, 1761--1790
(/isis/citation/CBB001210263/)
Article
Coppola, Al;
(2008)
Retraining the Virtuoso's Gaze: Behn's Emperor of the Moon, The Royal Society, and the Spectacles of Science and Politics
(/isis/citation/CBB001030337/)
Book
Lynch, William;
(2001)
Solomon's Child: Method in the Early Royal Society of London
(/isis/citation/CBB000201728/)
Chapter
Boschiero, Luciano;
(2009)
Networking and Experimental Rhetoric in Florence, Bologna and London during the 1660s
(/isis/citation/CBB001020802/)
Book
Bryson, Bill;
Turney, Jon;
(2010)
Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society
(/isis/citation/CBB001033160/)
Article
Hughes, Jeff;
(2010)
“Divine Right” or Democracy? The Royal Society “Revolt” of 1935
(/isis/citation/CBB001022757/)
Article
Cook, Alan;
(2001)
Centenary of the NPL
(/isis/citation/CBB000101341/)
Article
Despeaux, Sloan Evans;
(2011)
Fit to Print? Referee Reports on Mathematics for the Nineteenth-Century Journals of the Royal Society of London
(/isis/citation/CBB001220419/)
Article
Hartley, Beryl;
(2010)
Exploring and Communicating Knowledge of Trees in the Early Royal Society
(/isis/citation/CBB001022709/)
Article
Tina Skouen;
(2020)
Brian Cox and the new enlightenment
(/isis/citation/CBB526278326/)
Article
Boschiero, Luciano;
(2010)
Translation, Experimentation and the Spring of the Air: Richard Waller's Essayes of Natural Experiments
(/isis/citation/CBB001032188/)
Be the first to comment!