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Serials Pricing Crisis
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Meeting the Community's Needs
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aturae 
uriosi
rigin
of the 
cholarly 
ournalThe printed word, as opposed to the script, first began its ascendant role in Western academic communication in the 17th century (Eisenstein, 1979). This arose from the intersection of a number of social forces and technological advances, including the discovery of printing in Europe and the development and improvement of postal services (Eisenstein, 1979). Also, attitudes in the scholarly community were moving away from a focus on writings of the ancients, leaving a vacuum of shared, established knowledge. Another significant shift was the move towards investigations which were based on observation and experimentation (Kronick, 1962). Knowledge was becoming empirically based and scholars were actively sharing their new experimental results. Prior to journals, sharing scientific knowledge was dependent upon handwritten communication between scholars. Correspondences between some scientists were very extensive but this mode of interacting was subject to disruption by interpersonal disputes (e.g. arguments between Hooke and Huygens, Newton and Leibniz's mutual accusations of plagiarism) and geographical separation (Ornstein, 1963). In some situation, secrecy was maintained, using coded scripts to ensure competitors were kept from developments and priority in discovery could be established (Ornstein, 1963). During the 1500s and early 1600s, periodicity in print developed from these regular correspondences through to annual book catalogs, newsletters, almanacs and newspapers.
On January 5, 1665, Denis de Sallo published the first volume of the first Western scholarly journal,
the Journal des scavans. Sallo was a member of the French Parlement and belonged to a group of intellectuals which were to be the predecessors of the Académie des Sciences (Westfall, 1995). Technically, the Journal des scanvans itself would not be the publication of a learned society until 1903 when it came under the auspices of l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of the Institut de France (Parrott, 1999). The aim of the Journal des scavans, as itemized in the premier issue, was to publish weekly because, as Sallo stated "news ages quickly" (as translated by Ornstein, 1963) and to provide:
Title page of the Journal des scavans, Volume 2, 1667. Amsterdam: Pierre LeGrand, 1685. Collection of the University of British Columbia.
- a catalogue and short description of books
- provide obituaries of famous men
- publish experiments in physics and chemistry, observations of astrological phenomena, new anatomical findings, useful machines etc.
- print decisions of tribunals and universities
- publish current events in academia
In this way, the Journal, along with its contemporary journals, set the stage for what we have come to understand as a scholarly serial. As Kronick (1962) describes, the serial "falls between the book and the newspaper. It is usually addressed to a more limited audience than is the newspaper, and is not as firmly bound to the events of the day. The periodical resembles the book more than the newspaper in the range of ideas in which it deals" (Kronick, 1962, p.235).
he serial "falls between the book and the newspaper."
Ornstein notes that the promptness with which learned societies in other countries replicated the Journal de scavans and the appearance of highly regarded scholars, such as Malpighi, Leibniz, and Huygens in print soon after establishment of the journals speaks to the significant gap that the Journal filled in the scholarly community. Within two months of establishment of the Journal des scavans, the Philosophical Transactions was published as a monthly serial. One hundred years would pass before the Royal Society of London would officially sponsor it as the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. All journals which followed shortly thereafter imitated one of these two with the Journal having an appeal to both the academic and public communities and the Philosophical Transactions being of interest to scholars primarily.
Other journals which followed were (Ornstein, 1963): Gionale dei litterati di Roma estab. 1668 Italy Miscellanea curiosa medico-physica estab. 1670 Germany Acta medica et philosophica hafniensia estab. 1673 Denmark Collectanea medico-physica estab. 1680 Holland Acta eruditorum estab. 1682 Germany
Learned societies and academic institutions performed the functions necessary to maintain stable publications with reliable content. Mattlage (1999) describes these functions as reviewing the
unctions of the Journal
authored document, editing, aggregating, indexing, and delivery of documents. This system remained stable for a remarkably long time.... approximately 300 years. Which is not to say that journals were not established independently of learned societies. In fact, these independent journals greatly outnumbered the society journal beginning in the 18th century and continuing to this date. However, the stability conferred by an institutionalized body accounts for the continuous publishing history of many of the society journals and the more frequent disappearance of the "independent" journals. Kronick (1962) noted that, while society journals were less numerous in the 18th century, they accounted for approximately one-half of the published journals at any given time, due to their longevity.
The publication of innovative work in journals directly contributed to the accellerated pace of scientific discovery, supported the circulation of scientific knowledge and enabled scholars to maintain conduits of information across geographic distances. Science was now considerably more public, rather than privately distributed by letter within the narrow limits of a friendly circle of academics. The journal also contributed significantly to the defining of disciplines and the creation of the referee system of peer review (Eisenstein, 1979).
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Please forward comments to Karen MacDonell
Copyright held by Karen L. MacDonell, Ph.D.
Created December 6, 1999> Last revised December 6, 1999.
Prepared as a requirement of L500: Foundations of Information Technology,
School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
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