Paying for knowledge one page at a time: The author fee in physics in twentieth-century America

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences

Volumn 39, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 219-247

  Scheiding, Tom ^a  

^a ELIZABETHTOWN COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

American Institute of Physics; American Physical Society; Economics of science; Page charges; Patronage; Scholarly journals

Indexed keywords

EID: 77950702826     PISSN: 19391811     EISSN: 1939182X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/hsns.2009.39.2.219     Document Type: Review

References (70)

1. By 1976 the AIP was publishing 90% of the research articles in physics in the United States (approximately 16,000 articles annually). AIP, "The AIP in 1976," PT 30, no. 7 (1977): 45-55, on 45
2. For style of argument, see Alan G. Gross, Joseph E. Harmon, and Michael S. Reidy, Communicating Science: The Scientific Article from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 214-28
3. for the type of communication media, Ingemar Bohlin, "Communication Regimes in Competition: The Current Transition in Scholarly Communication Seen through the Lens of the Sociology of Technology," Social Studies of Science 34, no. 3 (2004): 365-91
4. for authorship, Peter Galison, "The Collective Author," in Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science, ed. Mario Biagioli and Peter Galison (New York: Routledge, 2003), 325-55
5. and Mario Biagioli, "Rights and Rewards?: Changing Frameworks of Scientific Authorship" in Scientific Authorship, ed. Biagioli and Galison, 253-79
6. for intellectual property, Corynne McSherry, "Uncommon Controversies: Legal Mediations of Gift and Market Models of Authorship," in Scientific Authorship, ed. Biagioli and Galison, 225-50
7. for shifting roles, Kristrún Gunnarsdóttir, "Scientific Journal Publications: On the Role of Electronic Preprint Exchange in the Distribution of Scientific Literature," Social Studies of Science 35, no. 4 (2005): 549-79
8. Daniel Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 76
9. Henry Barton, "The Publication Charge Plan in Physics Journals," PT 16, no. 6 (1963): 45-57
10. For a comprehensive, although not widely distributed history, see Capital Systems Group, Inc., Page-Charge Policies and Practices in Scientific and Technical Publishing: A Historical Summary and Annotated Bibliography (Springfield, VA: National Technical Information Service, 1976)
11. Kevles, Physicists (ref. 3), 218. David Kaiser notes that during the interwar period, the number of abstracts published per year in Physics Abstracts doubled every thirteen years
12. David Kaiser, American Physics and the Cold War Bubble (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), chap. 3
13. Minutes of the Meeting of the Council, 21 Feb 1930, APSR, Subgroup I, Series II, Box 5, Folder 15
14. Other disciplines such as mathematics had similarly extracted a subsidy from the research patron. The American Mathematical Society annually requested a contribution from the research patron with the amount determined by the number of pages published by scholars affiliated with the patron. Barton, Publication Charge Plan (ref. 4), 46
15. During the two-year trial, Loomis anonymously paid a total of $2,554.17. Minutes of the Meeting of the Council, 24 Feb 1933, APSR, Subgroup I, Series II, Box 6, Folder 4
16. Also see Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 106
17. Luis Alvarez, "Alfred Lee Loomis-Last Great Amateur of Science," PT 36, no. 1 (1983): 25-34
18. Memo to Members of the APS Governing Board, 3 Jul 1935, APSR, Subgroup I, Series II, Box 6, Folder 5
19. Minutes of the Meeting of the Council, 21-22 Jun 1935, APSR, Subgroup I, Series II, Box 6, Folder 6
20. Simone Turchetti, "The Invisible Businessman: Nuclear Physics, Patenting Practices, and Trading Activities in the 1930s," HSPS 37, no. 1 (2006): 153-72. Turchetti describes a situation where Enrico Fermi, having discovered a method to slow down neutrons, attempted to exploit the method for industrial applications. Fermi's patron, Orso Corbino, outright forbade the publication of Fermi's scientific discoveries before the patent was filed
21. Kaiser, Cold War Bubble (ref. 5), chap. 3
22. The uncertainty prior to the Comptroller's decision was whether government-sponsored research had to be published by the Government Printing Office. AIP, "Government Agencies CAN Pay Page Charges," PT 8, no. 11 (1955): 17-18
23. AIP, "1947 Annual Report," PT 1, no. 6 (1948): 29-35, on 33
24. AIP, "Institute Doings," PT 2, no. 6 (1949): 29, and 38-39, on 38
25. AIP, "Director's Report for 1951," PT 5, no. 5 (1952): 4-10, on 10
26. AIP, "Annual Report, 1957," PT 11, no. 6 (1958): 15-21, on 21
27. AIP, "Annual Report, 1959," PT 13, no. 5 (1960): 16-25, on 25
28. Robert Seidel highlights the difficulties faced within the AEC as the agency balanced its desire to encourage scientists to engage in basic research and publish their findings while at the same time prevent the disclosure of information that would have been useful to enemies. In this light, the page-charge payment mechanism can be viewed as one way by which the AEC negotiated the desire for academic atmosphere with a need for secrecy. Robert W. Seidel, "A Home for Big Science: The Atomic Energy Commission's Laboratory System," HSPS 16, no. 1 (1985): 135-75
29. The page-charge pricing mechanism was described in the AIP Annual Report in 1949 as "a way for the government to help provide for publishing government-supported research without the risks ordinarily inherent in government support." AIP, "Report to Members: Institute Doings," PT 3, no. 6 (1950): 36-39, on 36
30. Bernard Hodes, "The AIP in 1966," PT 20, no. 5 (1967): 45-53, on 49
31. Burton Adkinson, "Primary Scientific Publication and the Federal Government," Science 140, no. 3567 (1963): 613-17
32. Elmer Hutchisson, "AIP Annual Report, 1963," PT 17, no. 5 (1964): 43-59, on 58-59
33. Report of the Treasurer, 23 Oct 1964, APSR (ref. 41)
34. The AIP, frustrated with the reluctance of foreign research patrons to honor the page charge, applied for a page-charge underwriting grant from the NSF for those foreign authors for whom it was not honored. The request was turned down on May 6, 1969, by Burton Adkinson, NSF Director of the Office of Scientific Information Service. Adkinson replied that such a grant would contradict the NSF's philosophy that journals should not be continually dependent on government support, and that if the AIP was of the opinion that its members benefited by publishing manuscripts by foreign authors, then they should bear the economic burden. Herman William Koch to Burton Adkinson, 18 Apr 1969, and Burton Adkinson to Herman William Koch, 6 May 1969, both in APSR, Subgroup II, Series V, Box 21, Folder 9. The AIP responded by pricing foreign subscriptions at 50% above the domestic rate to reflect the lower page-charge honoring rate among foreign authors. AIP, "Report on AIP-1969," PT 22, no. 6 (1970): 43-52, on 44
35. AIP, "AIP in 1968: Expansion and Experimentation," PT 21, no. 6 (1969): 43-50, on 46
36. W. W. Havens to Robert Lawther, 11 Sep 1968, APSR, Subgroup II, Series V, Subseries C, Box 21, Folder 8
37. Goudsmit to Gottlieb, 11 Aug 1969, APSR, Subgroup II, Series V, Subseries C, Box 21, Folder 10
38. APS Council Meeting, 26 Nov 1968, APSR, Subgroup II, Series V, Subseries C, Box 21, Folder 13
39. For a discussion of this larger transition in the 1970s, see Philip Mirowski and Esther-Mirjam Sent, "Introduction," in Science Bought and Sold, ed. Philip Mirowski and Esther-Mirjam Sent (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 1-66
40. for the AEC's adjustment in response, see Albert Teich and W. Henry Lambright, "The Redirection of a Large Research Laboratory," Minerva 14, no. 4 (1976): 447-74. Teich and Lambright describe how the national labs, upon the disbanding of the AEC in 1975, attempted to diversify their sponsors and stake claims on resolving national problems that would require a great deal of resources and time
41. AIP, "AIP Annual Report: 1970," PT 23, no. 6 (1971): 38-43, on 42
42. AIP, "Viewing AIP in 1974," PT 27, no. 6 (1975): 45-53, on 50
43. AIP, "The AIP in 1978," PT 31, no. 8 (1979): 43-50, on 48
44. AIP, "The AIP in 1984: A Year for Review and Endorsement," PT 37, no. 7 (1985): 46-54, on 54
45. The NSF's search for other forms of subsidy and the agency's ultimate acceptance of the page-charge method is reflective of the search conducted internally by other governmental research funding agencies. Mary K. Hardman, Federal Support of Scientific and Technical Publication: A Summary of Policies and Practices (Rockville, MD: Capital Systems Group, Inc., 1977)
46. Partha Dasgupta and Paul David, "Toward a New Economics of Science," Research Policy 23 (1994): 487-521
47. Mirowski and Sent, Science Bought and Sold (ref. 62), 1-66, on 43-44
48. Capital Systems Group, Inc., Page-Charge Policies (ref. 4), 5-6
49. John M. Strawhorn, "Development of a Planning Guide to Innovation in the Dissemination of Scientific Information: Final Report" (Rockville, MD: Capital Systems Group, Inc., 1979)
50. The publication of research by physicists in the postwar period was complicated by the fact that the federal government had assumed total control over the intellectual property in atomic research and restricted the distribution of other research it financed out of national security concerns. For an extended discussion of this, see Turchetti, "Invisible Businessman" (ref. 18)
51. W. W. Havens to H. W. Koch, 25 Jun 1973, APSR, Subgroup II, Series V, Subseries C, Box 21, Folder 14
52. This copyright statement is reprinted in AIP, "AIP Will Ask Authors to Transfer Copyright Under New Law," PT 30, no. 9 (1977): 85-87, on 86
53. J. A. Krumhansl, "Editorial: Contribute your Copyright," PT 28, no. 9 (1977): 104
54. Koch was not only the Director of the AIP but was also a member of the Copyright Clearance Center's Board of Directors. AIP, "AIP Will Ask Authors" (ref. 75), 87
55. AIP, "Postal Service Relaxes Stand on Page Charges," PT 30, no. 3 (1977): 103
56. Harold L. Davis, "In Appreciation of Page Charges," PT, 30, no. 3 (1977): 120
57. This interpretation was in line with the Tax Reform Act of 1969, a law that fundamentally altered the philanthropic environment by distinguishing between private foundations and other organizations engaged in charitable activities. After 1969 private foundations were more tightly regulated and more heavily taxed than previously. John G. Simon, "The Regulation of American Foundations: Looking Backward at the Tax Reform Act of 1969," Voluntas 6, no. 3 (1995): 243-54
58. Lawrence Altman, "Scientific Journals May Face Closings," New York Times, 1 Jan 1979
59. Edward Cowan, "IRS Denies Hounding Journals," New York Times, 13 Jan 1979
60. AIP, "The AIP in 1978," PT 32, no. 8 (1979): 43-50, on 43
61. An example can be seen in the changes made to the publication statement that appeared in journals such as Physical Review. In 1933 this statement read, "Published for the American Physical Society by the American Institute of Physics, Inc." In 1980 it was changed to "Published for the American Physical Society through the American Institute of Physics," attributing the journal title to the specific scholarly society and representing the AIP as an intermediary rather than a controlling entity. Paul Hartman, A Memoir on the Physical Review: A History of the First Hundred Years (Woodbury, NY: AIP Press, 1994), 152
62. AIP, "The AIP in 1979," PT 33, no. 8 (1980): 25-32, on 28
63. The New York City Tax Commission also denied the AIP's 1980 application for a property tax exemption with a belief that the organization was not an educational entity. The tax exemption was eventually granted. AIP, "The AIP in 1981," PT 34, no. 7 (1982): 25-34, on 28
64. Report by A. W. Kenneth Metzner to APS Publication Committee, 24 Jul 1979, APSR, Subgroup II, Series XV, Box 51, Folder 3
65. William Koch, "AIP and APS Reduce Journal Page Charges," PT 37, no. 3 (1984): 91
66. While David Lazarus, Editor-in-Chief of the AIP, wrote a guest comment in Physics Today in April 1982 defending the page charge, his full-throated argument for the pricing mechanism did little to preserve its use. David Lazarus, "Page Charge Revisited-An Old Battle Rejoined," PT 35, no. 4 (1982): 9-10
67. Report of the Treasurer at the APS Council Meeting, 1 Nov 1987, APSR, Subgroup II, Series XV, Box 52, Folder 6
68. The equation used to calculate an institution's tier is available at http://librarians.aip.org/tierAssign07.html (last accessed on 14 Feb 2009)
69. For further details about the program, see http://publish.aps.org/ FREETOREAD-FAQ.html (last accessed on 14 Feb 2009)
70. Tom Scheiding, "Explaining the Inability of Economists to Practice What They Preach: The Funding of the American Economic Review with Author Charges," Journal of Economic Methodology 16, no. 1 (2009): 21-43