Projects per year
Abstract
Scientific journal publishing has become a lucrative enterprise, for commercial firms and (some) learned societies 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 subsidised 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 the 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.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 20220021 |
Number of pages | 28 |
Journal | Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science |
Volume | 78 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 3 Aug 2022 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2024 |
Keywords
- Royal Society
- Twentieth century
- Scientific journals
- Academic publishing
- Profits
- Circulation of knowledge
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Dive into the research topics of 'From philanthropy to business: the economics of Royal Society journal publishing in the twentieth century'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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Publishing the Philosophical Transaction: Publishing the Philosophical Transactions: the social, cultural & economic history of a learned journal 1665 - 2015
Fyfe, A. (PI), McDougall-Waters, J. (CoI), Moxham, N. J. (CoI), McDougall-Waters, J. (Researcher), Moxham, N. J. (Researcher) & Rostvik, C. M. (Researcher)
Arts and Humanities Research Council
1/05/13 → 31/08/17
Project: Standard
Datasets
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Royal Society publishing income and expenditure 1880-2010
Fyfe, A. (Creator), Figshare, 2022
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.21262656.v1
Dataset
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A history of scientific journals: publishing at the Royal Society, 1665-2015
Fyfe, A., Moxham, N., McDougall-Waters, J. & Rostvik, C. M., 3 Oct 2022, London: UCL Press. 643 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book
Open AccessFile -
Journals, learned societies and money: Philosophical Transactions ca. 1750–1900
Fyfe, A., 20 Sept 2015, In: Notes and Records of the Royal Society. 69, 3, p. 277-299Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile