April 10, 1903.J 



SCIENCE. 



575 



the method of scientific publication can not 

 be so improved as to make the available 

 funds more effective, and to secure the sup- 

 port of libraries and of private individuals 

 who make use of scientific publications. 



Setting aside the publications supported 

 by the government, scientific publications 

 may be roughly divided into journals de- 

 voted to special branches of science, special 

 memoirs supported by scientific societies or 

 institutions, and miscellaneous serials sup- 

 ported by general societies, such as acad- 

 emies of sciences and museums. Among 

 these the only class that is entirely, or at 

 least almost, self-supporting, are the 

 special technical journals, which appeal to 

 a well-defined group of people that consti- 

 tute a society supporting the journal, or 

 which are published by a few individuals 

 and pay the cost of manufacture through 

 subscriptions. The second and third 

 classes of publications are almost entirely 

 supported by voluntary contributions, not 

 by the public that makes use of them. If 

 it were feasible to readjust the conditions 

 of publication in such a manner as to create 

 a market for the publications here referred 

 to, the facilities for publication would be 

 materially increased, the available endow- 

 ment would be made more effective, and 

 the claims for more liberal financial sup- 

 port would become justifiable. 



It seems to my mind that the traditional 

 policy of societies and other scientific in- 

 stitutions to pviblish serials devoted to mis- 

 cellaneous subjects is, to a great extent, the 

 cause of present conditions, and that by 

 proper cooperation between such societies 

 and institutions many of the difficulties un- 

 der which we are laboring might be ob- 

 viated. At the present time numerous 

 academies of science publish volumes of 

 transactions, proceedings, annals, etc. 

 Most of these publications are not strong 

 enough to command the support of the 



scientific public. They find their way 

 into libraries of other societies by ex- 

 change. They are sent to the members of 

 the society that publishes the serial, but 

 they are not read by them on account of 

 the miscellaneous character of the publica- 

 tion. For this reason the serials of most 

 of our mixed societies have come to be an 

 excellent means of burying good scientific 

 material. They are not read; they are 

 placed on the shelves of the libraries of 

 societies, which, on the whole, are unable 

 to make their books accessible to the read- 

 ing public. There are, therefore, two 

 points of view from which the present 

 method of publication may well be criti- 

 cised. The one is that the material is com- 

 bined into volumes in such a way that an 

 exceedingly small part of each volume only 

 is useful to the student of a particular 

 branch of science. The second is that 

 these serials find their place, not in im- 

 portant libraries, but rather in small 

 libraries of societies, where it is very diffi- 

 cult to consult books. 



This method of distribution is also a 

 survival of conditions which may have 

 been desirable in former times, when there 

 were no great public libraries, and when 

 the scientific society had to perform gen- 

 eral educational functions, among them 

 that of maintaining a reference library. 

 At the present time this need is well taken 

 care of by various kinds of public libraries, 

 so that it may well be doubted whether, 

 at least in most of our larger cities, it is 

 worth while for societies to continue the 

 accumulation of books. As a matter of 

 fact, the method of building up libraries 

 by means of exchanges is one that does not 

 seem to fit well into our economic condi- 

 tions. In all other walks of life the ac- 

 knowledged medium of exchange is money, 

 and Ave measure the equivalent of an ex- 

 change by this standard. In building up 



