Academic scientists are judged by the papers they publish. The pressure to publish in the peer-reviewed literature of science has grown tremendously over the last thirty years or so; a period that has coincided with a rapid increase in global investments on scientific research. Individuals, institutions and even countries attempt to maximise published output, with the result that there has been an almost unmanageable increase in the number of scientific journals that are published today. The technologies of the information age have contributed to this explosion of scientific literature as many new journals appear only in electronic form, while many old journals move towards dispensing with the traditional, printed form. Journals have always needed money for production. A long time ago, when scientific societies and academies were the sole publishers, many ventures functioned like ‘not-for-profit’ organisations, performing a community service. Editors and reviewers were unpaid volunteers, growing in number as science expanded. Science publishing as a commercial enterprise began to take root in the 1960s and grew very rapidly in the following decades. Traditionally, libraries paid for journals and institutions largely bore the costs entailed.
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