History+of+Scientific+Journals



The history of publishing scientific findings and theories dates back to the time of Isaac Newton. However, work of this period (Late 17th century), was often ridiculed and looked at with superstition. Often, findings disputed one another, leading to controversy and skepticism within scientific fields. Other times, academics published results at the same time (simultaneous discovery), and spent much of their academic lives fighting to be credited with a find. At odds with each other, philosophers (as they were once called), were not very credible. The contested claims for priority and recognition kept the public from accepting scientific thought. It wasn't until the advent of academic journals that science began to be accepted in the mainstream, rather than just supplement to religion, superstition and folk beliefs.

For journals to be produced though, first the democratization of print had to occur. Previously, at the time of Newton in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, printed books (for the most part, manuscripts and incunambalum were becoming obsolete), were made in a guild-like fashion. Specialists would contribute to every part of the printing process, where everything from the hand-lain paper to the blind-tooled binding to the printing would be done in an artisan fashion, separately at different institutions. This process created a very high-quality product, but it also resulted in very expensive books. Not only were patrons paying for labor costs and materials, but books themselves took a very long time to make, so they could not be distributed among everyone. Because of this, books took on the quality of "luxury items," treasures that denoted both status and wealth. Not only this, but in the busy 18th century, books showed that one had free time to pursue the "life of the mind," an activity reserved for the upper classes.

Everything about the book embellished it as a patina for intellectualism. It became fashionable to carry books around, include them in portraits and other paintings and even house separate rooms for them at home. However, books were by no means democratic, in the sense that they were only availible to a select few.

Progressive inventions of the 18th century soon changed this paradigm. The advent and mass use of reproductive engraving, etching and the planographic process, including lithography, allowed for masterpieces of art as well as cartoons, diagrams and data much more readily availible. For the first time, printing allowed for a mass production technique. This paved the way for others to come soon after. The guild process began to fall apart, as houses took on more and more of the process themselves. Indeed, every invention of the 18th century was used to make the bookmaking process more efficient; the 19th century saw even more of an explosion of printing, creating the environment in which an academic journal may thrive.

Before the 19th century, printing was done by hand. This laborious process not only made books more expensive than today's counterparts, but also slowed down the printing process considerably. By mechanizing this process at least in part with the steam-powered press, the speed of printing grew exponentially. Further, to keep production costs down, hand-lain paper, made from cloth and rags, was replaced by wood pulp paper, made from trees. The latter product could be made easily and cheaply, and was able to be rolled into great cylinders of paper to speed up the printing process even further. However, it does not last the ages, so some books of the 19th and early 20th centuries have crumbled into dust, and many others have already begun to see such wear and tear that they cannot be read recreationally. They are more fragile than their codex counterparts of 7th century Islam, whose pages can still be torn with breaking.

With the ability to produce text //en masse// came the opportunity to create journals, magazines, newspapers articles, and other media that are released on a monthly, weekly or even daily schedule. Further, the atmosphere in America at the time was one of curiousity. Science was no longer disregarded, due to public demonstrations, exhibitions and experiments, notably in the fields of chemistry and biology, that shocked audiences and left them wanting more. Indeed, it was the popularity of public lectures that led many of the upper and middle class to pursue scientific inquiry as a leisure activity. As such, numerous journals began to be produced, chronicling the findings of the field for both armchair scientists and public practitioners. One such Journal, the longest running and most popular, was the American Journal of Arts and Sciences, now known as the Journal of Science.