Dissertation Information for Russell Shank NAME: - Russell Shank
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- Columbia University (USA) (1966)
ADVISORS: - Ray L. Trautman - Maurice Tauber
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Winifred B. Linderman - Alice Bryan - Theodore C. Hines
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING SOCIETIES IN THE UNITED STATES AS PUBLISHERS, 1939-1964
Abstract: The purpose or this study was threerold: (1) to identify and delineate the factors that influenced engineering. and physical science sciety pulishing
activities in the United states between 1939 and 1964; (2) to describe the effects of these influences on the publishing activities and the publications or societies; and (3) to assess the role of the society as an agent in the communication and control of scientific and technical information. The administration of the publishing programs and the output of publications of the following six societies were examined: American Chemical Society, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Nuclear Society, American Society of Lubrication Engineers, Mineralogical Society of America, and Optical Society of America. Data were obtained through content analysis of the published reports of the societies committees, boards, and councils, from published comments and discussions by society and government officals, and scientists, from interviews with society and editorial officials, and from an examination of tha types of publications issued by the societies.
The chief elements of change that were found to have been most influential in
shaping society publishing activities were the following:
(1) the vast increase in the amount or scientific activity; (2) the increasing complexity of the relationships of the various problem areas and topical subdivisions in scienc;; (3) the diffusion of the boundaries that tend to contain in each discipline a province ot exclusive knowledge; (4) the magnified role of the Federal government as both a generator and a customer of scientific information; and (5) the general rise in economic indicators. Traditions of society involvement in publishing in science also were strong determinants ot the alternatives selected by societies in meeting problems of communication.
The societies were responsive in molding publishing programs to meet the pressures of environmental influences, but were conservative in their decisions. The traditional authority of the journal editors to select the contents of their joumals aM the process of p6er review of papers prior, to publication were preserved. The societies maintained the traditional· reporting fonns and styles, but increased the selectivity willi which information was disseminated by establishing more specialized outlets. The distribution of scientific and technical papers in journals remained the chief publishing activity of societies, and the only one in common to them all. All of the societies made extensive use of interdisciplinary state of the art symposia presentations, but were unable to devise any standard publication mechanism for symposia papers. The socioties' non journal publishing programs, in which no significant change in kind and level ot activity was mtad, resulted largely from the need to publish the output ot the societies' technical activities programs, organised to produce information in nsglacted areas of operation in the scientitic community.
Societies generaly have not been inventive of new methods and systems of communicating and storing information They were not involved in information and bibliographic control work with the same universailty as they were in the production of primary publications. Some were major agents in literature control work, but several or the socteties were totally uncommitted to secondary publishing programs.
Scientists and engineers can no longer alone support the creation of their own archive of acceptable professional knowledge. Financial support for society publishing activities shifted sharply toward institutional support, through the use of advertising, page charges, higher institutional dues and subscription rates, and direct subsidies. Some of these sources are being pressed to their limits by most societies, and trends indicate that economic pressures may result in further adjustments in the patterns of dissemimtion of information.
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MPACT Scores for Russell Shank A = 0
C = 2
A+C = 2
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:01:40
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