Conference: Publish or Perish? The past, present & future of the scientific periodical
Conference: Publish or Perish? The past, present &
future of the scientific periodical
The Royal Society, London: 19-21 March 2015
Registration is now open for ‘Publish or Perish’, an
international conference on the history of the scientific periodical.
As a major activity to mark the 350th anniversary of the
Philosophical Transactions, the world’s oldest scientific journal, the Royal
Society is hosting a history of science conference in spring 2015. At a time
when the future of scientific publishing is in flux, this conference will take
the long perspective by examining the transformations and challenges in
scientific journal publishing over the last three and a half centuries, and
into the future.
The conference features research on all aspects of
scientific journals from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first – their
production, editorial practices, techniques of illustration, patterns of
dissemination, reading, reception, and commercial viability, and how these
varied with place and time, with the development of new technologies of
production and transmission, of commercial competition, and of shifting
scientific priorities. In addition to a
clutch of papers on the Philosophical Transactions themselves, considering the
journal’s reach, innovation and influence, the interventions on offer range
across numerous scientific journals from Europe, and further afield from China,
India, South Africa, the US and Latin America, and track the spread of particular
models of scientific publishing, of innovation in the form, and of practices of
selection, evaluation and review.
Confirmed speakers include: Maeve Adams, Melinda Baldwin,
June Barrow-Green, Jim Bennett, Daniel Carey, Peter Collins, Jennifer Connor,
Alex Csiszar, Sloan Despeaux, Aileen Fyfe, Adrian Johns, Sachiko Kusukawa,
James Mussell, Jeanne Peiffer, Adrian Rice, Jim Secord, Iain Watts Also
featuring are two public events: a public oral history event, on the experience
of scientific publishing in the 20th and 21st centuries; and a roundtable
discussion on the future of the scientific journal featuring publishers,
editors, and open access advocates.
Come and join us for what promises to be a fascinating
three days in the heart of London.
Special registration rate for graduate students and the
unwaged.
For queries regarding the event and the academic
programme please contact publishorperish@royalsociety.org.
For more information, visit:
Royal Society Events Page: https://royalsociety.org/events/2015/03/publish-or-perish/
‘Publish or Perish’ is organised by the project team from
the AHRC-funded research project Publishing the Philosophical Transactions
1665-2015, based at the University of St Andrews. An investigation of350 years of Philosophical
Transactions’ social, cultural and economic history, this project aims to write
the first comprehensive history of the world’s first scientific journal.
Project homepage: https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/philosophicaltransactions/