Economic Aspects of Scientific Journalism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

The proliferation of scientific journals, starting in the middle of the seventeenth century, marked the beginnings of a new epoch in the dissemination of scientific information. The new medium brought with it the influences of a long heritage going back to scribal cultures, which even before the invention of printing, had produced almanacs and newsletters in writing. The economics of periodical publications varied little from those associated with other kinds of printing in this period. They involved the relationship of fixed and variable costs and their effect on edition size in relationship to anticipated markets. Examples of these aspects of scientific publishing are examined in scientific journals published independently and under the auspices of scientific societies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.