Back to disciplines: exploring the stability of publication regimes in chemistry: the case of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (1879\u20132010)

Marianne Noel

doi:10.1057/s41599-020-00543-6

Abstract

Based on a case study, this article explores the stability of publication regimes (as defined by Hilgartner (2015, 2017)) in chemistry. Starting with a slight detour via open access (OA) policies, it concentrates on the conditions of editorial production and trade of a scholarly journal, from an historical perspective enriched by a sociology of valuation and pricing. Prices are seen as social constructs as I consider the modalities of market coordination among actors of the publishing enterprise in a major scholarly society, the American Chemical Society (ACS). The study focuses on the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), a periodical that was founded in 1879 by the ACS, of which it is the “flagship” journal. The investigation relies mainly on a detailed examination of the JACS imprint from a diachronic perspective (1879–2010). I describe how scientific papers (as singular entities) gradually entered into a commodity market, first with the page-charge mechanism and the imposition of authors’ fees, up to the emergence of the Article Processing Charge (APC) model, where the authors/institutions pay fees to have the electronic versions of their articles in OA. The proposed timeline in five periods is marked by two points of rupture that correspond to State intervention and the adoption of federal laws. Inherited from the deployment of science regimes in the post-WWII period, revenue collection models were collectively invented by the ACS and its members as successive adjustments to address massive imbalances caused by changes in scientific, institutional, and regulatory environments. Specific market mechanisms and modes of coordination have been put in place to support the development and guarantee the continuity of a disciplinary program (that of chemistry) in the frame of what I call a disciplinary publication regime.

Highlights

With the creation of the Internet, many of the assumptions underpinning the established scholarly communication system have been challenged (Borgman, 2007)
The story brings to light a series of entities closely linked to each other in an organizational continuum: the American Chemical Society (ACS) divisions (Publications Division, Division of Chemical Literature, Chemical Abstracts Service, etc.), the R&D department that did not exist for long, the journals (JACS, Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN), Analytical Chemistry, Chemical Reviews, Environmental Science & Technology, etc.), the printing house (Reinhold Publishing Corporation), and the institutions (National Science Foundation, US Postal Service, etc.) and firms that contributed to price-setting in a constant dialog with the ACS
This study shows the processes through which “price setters” used the competitive context and the legal framework that constrained the terms of exchange to move forward in their own logic of action

Summary

Introduction

With the creation of the Internet, many of the assumptions underpinning the established scholarly communication system have been challenged (Borgman, 2007). Digitalization has been accompanied by commercialization, with an increasingly concentrated journal market led by a handful of large, for-profit publishing houses (Strasser and Edwards, 2016). Starting in the 1990s under the heading Open Access (OA), a broad debate on necessary transformations took place among stakeholders in the scientific world. The removal of barriers to the online access and re-use of scholarly research is driven by a mix of technological, financial, moral, and commercial imperatives. For the European Union, as well as for governments and funding agencies the message is: the future is open. All projects receiving Horizon 2020 funding are required to make sure that any peerreviewed journal article they publish is openly accessible and free of charge, or else risk financial penalties (European Commission, 2017). OA policies are broadly developing around the world in various ways

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Conclusion