Self-help for learned journals: Scientific societies and the commerce of publishing in the 1950s.

Aileen Fyfe

doi:10.1177/0073275321999901

Abstract

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.

Highlights

In 1895, the secretary to the Royal Society explained to the UK government that the publication of scientific research journals could not be undertaken “on an ordinary commercial basis.”
The dominance of modern research journal publishing by international media conglomerates has motivated many of the current campaigns for the reform of academic publishing.[3]
The Royal Astronomical Society had initially sent a leaflet promoting its Monthly Notices “to a list supplied by the printer,” and it told the Nuffield committee that the results had been “less disappointing than was feared at one stage,” they subsequently planned to send the leaflet to “a hand-picked list of 500 scientific and national libraries and institutions.”[86]. The Chemical Society, too, created a “hand-picked” list, though its focus was “1,500 industrial addresses.”[87]. Morley explained that he encouraged society officers to use “their own knowledge” to identify “individual heads of departments at American universities and colleges”; this was far better than using standard lists of American libraries because “librarians are shy birds to shoot at.”[88]

Summary

Introduction

In 1895, the secretary to the Royal Society explained to the UK government that the publication of scientific research journals could not be undertaken “on an ordinary commercial basis.” This being so, “the burden” of publishing research necessarily. When it came to circulating this publicity material, Morley repeatedly argued that “head-work” was more important than “unguided promotional efforts,” and that learned societies had – in their own membership – excellent resources for selecting and scrutinizing a specialist mailing list.[84] It was possible to hire an agency to send promotional material “to ‘a good list’ of 5,000 addresses or more” – but for specialized scientific journals, this was unlikely to be money well spent.[85] The Royal Astronomical Society had initially sent a leaflet promoting its Monthly Notices “to a list supplied by the printer,” and it told the Nuffield committee that the results had been “less disappointing than was feared at one stage,” they subsequently planned to send the leaflet to “a hand-picked list of 500 scientific and national libraries and institutions.”[86] The Chemical Society, too, created a “hand-picked” list, though its focus was “1,500 industrial addresses.”[87] Morley explained that he encouraged society officers to use “their own knowledge” to identify “individual heads of departments at American universities and colleges”; this was far better than using standard lists of American libraries because “librarians are shy birds to shoot at.”[88] This focus on overseas, and especially North American, markets was a change of approach for British learned societies, which had traditionally focused on their Britishbased members and on scientific institutions in the British sphere of influence. On the growing links between academia in the United States and the British world, see Pietsch, Empire of Scholars (note 10), Ch. 8, especially pp.[177–8]

92. LJ-SAC

Findings

Conclusions