ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Scientists’ involvements in academic publishing before open access: a comparative survey of publishing companies controlled by authors, Britain and France, 1920-1990

• In Event: Researchers and the Management of Scientific Journals in the Mid-20th-Century: Franco-British Perspectives

English Abstract

During the 19th century, learned societies published books and journals most of the time through private publishers. A few universities had their own presses (Oxford, Cambridge). After 1918, some scientists strengthened their positions in publishing companies in many ways. Cambridge University Press, with T.H. Wright, developed a new academic policy. In France, scientists founded academic publishing companies owned by the authors: Presses Universitaires de France and Editions de physique (1920), Expansion scientifique française (1925). Physics, medicine, biology and philosophy were the main disciplines concerned. Shareholders were prestigious university members in these cooperative societies or limited public companies. Theirs programs were focused on journals and proceedings; they might include constant tables, abstracts, bibliographies. British and American university presses were their models. However, if all these scholars shared the notions of ‘service’ and ‘social responsibility of science’, as W.H. Bragg did at the Royal Society, the political context and applications were different on both sides of the Channel. French scientists tried to define their own business model in the same lonely way they argued on ‘scientific property’ within the SDN against British and American positions. Economic success only came after 1945, with the growth of markets for university textbooks. British university presses invest the international market while French companies stay focused on French-speaking market with a few exceptions (Institut Pasteur). What were scientists’ views concerning their missions in publishing throughout the 20th century? If editorship and public research are growing concerns among the scientific communities, early attempts by the authors to control academic publishing are less known but just as important.

Author

• Valérie Tesnière, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Centre Maurice Halbwachs