Article ID: CBB754871060

From philanthropy to business: The economics of Royal Society journal publishing in the twentieth century (2022)

unapi

Scientific journal publishing has become a lucrative enterprise, for commercial firms and (some) society publishers alike; but it was not always thus. The Royal Society is the publisher of the world's longest-running scientific journal, and for most of the history of the Philosophical Transactions, its publication was a severe drain on the Society's finances. This paper uses the rich archives of the Royal Society to investigate the economic transformation of journal publishing over the course of the twentieth century. It began the century as a scholarly mission activity heavily subsidized by the Society, but ended it as a valuable income stream. Never-before-seen data reveal three phases: the end of the philanthropic model of circulation; the transition to a sales-based commercial model amidst the post-war boom in subscriber numbers; and the challenges facing that new business model once subscriber numbers went into decline in the late twentieth century. The paper does not directly address the open access movement of the twenty-first century, but is essential reading to understand the financial background.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB754871060/

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Authors & Contributors
Fyfe, Aileen
Baldwin, Melinda Clare
Connor, Jennifer J.
Horiuchi, Annick
Johnson, Curtis N.
Moxham, Noah
Journals
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin Canadienne d'Histoire de la Medecine
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science
Science Communication
Social Studies of Science
Publishers
University of Virginia
Oxford University Press
University of Washington Press
Tinta da China
Renaissance Books
Concepts
Scholarly publishing
Communication of scientific ideas
Periodicals; serials
Communication within scientific contexts
Societies; institutions; academies
Scientific communities; interprofessional relations
People
Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason, Sir
Banks, Joseph
Darwin, Charles Robert
Petiver, James
Sarmento, Jacob de Castro
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
21st century
20th century
17th century
20th century, early
Places
Great Britain
Newfoundland (Canada)
Labrador (Canada)
Brazil
Chile
China
Institutions
Royal Society of London
American Physical Society
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