A History of Scientific Journals: Publishing at the Royal Society, 1665–2015. By Aileen Fyfe, Noah Moxham, Julie McDougall-Waters and Camilla Mørk Røstvik. University College London Press, 2022. Pp. 664. Open access, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2gz3zp1.

作者：J. Helliwell · 发表于：Journal of Applied Crystallography · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1107/s1600576723004466 · 被引用次数：5

The book commences with an Introduction: Origin myths . This book was nine years in the making. It was inspired by the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society and the start of the first journal, Philosophical Transactions . At the celebrations, Sir Paul Nurse, Nobel Prize winner, observed that Henry Oldenburg had started the journal in 1665; Oldenburg had described four essential elements that its introduction would bring for scientists from all over the world, namely registration, verification, dissemination and archiving. That said, the authors of the present book are clear that whilst the core facts are true, Oldenburg started it and the year was 1665, it is not the case that the needs of modern scientists and modern scientific publications were anticipated back then. More specifically, in a section entitled Going beyond the myths , it is pointed out that it was a further 87 years before Philosophical Transactions was to become an official publication. The authors conclude their opening chapter with the observation that their book matters not least because ‘the structures of academic publishing are being consciously renegotiated [today]’