Scholarly Publishing in Western Europe and Great Britain

Abstract

Postwar Europe has produced a phenomenon of special interest to scholars and scientists: the use of English as the universal language of scientific communication. In the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Germany, scholarly books and journals are published in English. Huge publishing conglomerates have proliferated, all based on the English language. This medium for presenting knowledge and ideas to a world market has been an essential element of the unprecedented growth of scientific knowledge in our generation. Two other modern elements, the computer and the photocopying machine, have contributed to this growth. Now the computer and the photocopier threaten to destroy copyright—the essential basis for successful publishing— and are forcing traditional scholarly media such as monographs, proceedings publications and specialized journals out of business. Consideration is given to the possible end result that the computer and the photocopier may stifle the traditional forms of communication upon which the scientific community depends. Europe is the first arena in which an accommodation will be reached if the results of scholarship are to be unimpeded.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Munksgaard's total sales volume to 1950 stemmed from commission books. In 1974 this same category represented less than 5 percent of their sales volume. (Private communication.)

National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services NFAIS Newsletter 16, no. 1 (Philadelphia, February 1974)

Figures extracted from The Nobel Foundation Nobel: The Man & His Prizes, 3rd ed. (New York: American Elsevier 1972)

Annual Report of the Sixth General Assembly of the International Group of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM), Frankfurt, 9 October 1974, presented by Chairman Edward E. Booher

The basis for this position is to be found in the brilliant presentation by Henry

Nicholas L.

, “Copyright: Its Adequacy in Technological Societies,” in Science 186 (13 December 1974), pp. 993–1004. The title of his article, however, is a misnomer. Henry should acknowledge his bias by entitling the article, “Copyright: Its Irrelevance in a Technological Society.”

Gabriel

Michael

“The Microfiche Solution,”

Library Journal (1 October 1974), p. 2451

From an interview with the author at the Society of Bookmen, London, 1972

Moran

Neil C.

letter, in Science 186 (25 October 1974), p. 304

Lingeman

Richard R.

“Copyright and the Right to ‘Copy’—Part II,”

New York Times Book Review, 24 November 1974, p. 45

10.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimate, cited by Lee Burchinal of the National Science Foundation. (Unpublished paper delivered 15 October 1974 at the Meeting of the American Society for Information Science in Atlanta, Georgia.)

11.

The Bookseller, London, 4 January 1975, p. 21

12.

Walker

David

“Dark Days for the Academic Publisher,”

Times Higher Educational Supplement (London), 12 July 1974

13.

This point of view is supported by interviews with O. ter Haar, Managing Director, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co., Amsterdam; Oluf V. Moller, Director, Munksgaard, Copenhagen; Cecil Pedersen, Publishing Director, British Institute of Physics, Bristol; and Colin Eccleshare, Director, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. The interviews were part of a survey conducted by the author in October 1974 at the Frankfurt International Book Fair

14.

Henry

“Copyright.” See, especially, note 7, p. 1002

15.

Abelson

Philip H.

editorial, in Science 186 (22 November 1974), p. 693

16.

Altbach

Philip G.

private communication