Session 5
Despite this week's announcement - that our blogs are no longer compulsory - I will be continuing with this excerise for the following reasons:
a) I have found this useful in supporting my learning of this module
b) it has encouraged me to do more extensive research and contemplation outside of lessons
c) it challenges me to create content, an important facet to the life-cycle of publishing. As Ernesto put it "not every readers writes but every writer has to read" [to read back their own work].
This week we considered the history of scholarly publishing. Ernesto emphasised the difference between 'scholarly', 'trade' and 'professional' publishing, (professional being a recent addition). That scholarly writing had grown out of the church (monasteries and theology texts) was mentioned, the royal society's contribution and the historical context of these traditions of publishing.
We were shown (and got to touch) facsimiles of 19th century scholarly journals - both science related. I was struck by the format - tiny text laid out like an old fashioned broadsheet. Also the mix of content was striking; book reviews mixed with patent announcements but also poetry was included along the margins.
We talked about how Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society was the first academic journal (in the sense that we understand it to be) which was first published in 1665. Which, quite frankly, seems insanely long ago. Ernesto mentioned very briefly the 'uniform penny post' which enabled low cost subscription p+p and created an explosion in subscription publishing.
I was intrigued by this, as I haven't come across it before. I looked at the postal reforms here: Rowland Hill & the Penny Black. However, I found little about their effect on publishing or on wider society.
Ernesto described the different factions within scholarly publishing and how they interact, such as scholarly publishers' reliance on academic libraries for a large volume of their output. As disruption creeps into academic systems this has an effect on the publishing eco-system and also visa-verso. For example, the 'serials crisis' in which academic institutions could no longer afford the high prices of journal subscriptions. What is clear is that the balance between writers and reads is nothing compared to the effect that publishing operations have on these two occupations. It would seem an obvious point to make, but whoever has control over what is distributed in a society has immense influence over a populace. When the price of publishing is too high then output cannot be disseminated, but then the cost is too low or too easily available there is little room for development and investment in writing, art and curation. Publishing is then under valued as a pursuit.
In one of the suggested journal article given to us by Ernesto I found an interesting table which outlines some of the different characteristics of the author and the publisher. The main difference between an author and a publisher would seem to be that an author creates something within a closed system. They create for their own reasons (even when there are multiple authors) and work toward a 'finished' text/output. Whereas, publishers are curators. They manage content, administrate systems for readers and writers and stimulate production. A publisher's role and existence is dependent on there being a producer/writer (even then the publisher is themself the writer).
*screen shot taken from:
Binfield, Peter, Rolnik, Zachary, Brown, Cindy and Cole, Kerry (2008) "Academic Journal Publishing", The Serials Librarian: From the Printed Page to the Digital Age, 54:1-2, 141-153, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03615260801973992 [accessed 02/03/2015].
