Tag Archives: Open Access Week

Trip down memory lane courtesy of the Royal Society

It’s a long trip down memory lane, courtesy of the Royal Society, all the way back to 1665 when they first started published their Philosophical Transactions. In her Oct. 26, 2011 posting in Punctuated Equilibrium on the Guardian science blogs site, GrrlScientist writes,

Beginning today, the historical archives of the peer-reviewed journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, are permanently free to online access from anywhere in the world, according to an announcement by The Royal Society.

The Royal Society, established in 1660, began publishing the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society — world’s first scientific journal — in March 1665. In 1886, it was divided into two journals, Philosophical Transactions A (mathematics, physics and engineering) and Philosophical Transactions B (biological sciences), both of which are published to this day. Its historical archives are defined as all scientific papers published 70 years or longer ago. These historical archives include more than 60,000 scientific papers.

I took a peek at the 1865-1866 issue and it is quite the experience to see what was being published. Here’s an excerpt from the Table of Contents for the 1st issue (Note: I have removed links to the documents),

Epistle Dedicatory

Phil. Trans. 1665 1: doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0001

  • ·  The Introduction

Phil. Trans. 1665 1:1-2; doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0002

  • ·  An Accompt of the Improvement of Optick Glasses

Phil. Trans. 1665 1:2-3; doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0003

  • ·  A Spot in One of the Belts of Jupiter

Phil. Trans. 1665 1:3; doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0005

  • ·  The Motion of the Late Comet Praedicted

Phil. Trans. 1665 1:3-8; doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0004

  • ·  An Experimental History of Cold

Phil. Trans. 1665 1:8-9; doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0006

An Account of a Very Odd Monstrous Calf

Phil. Trans. 1665 1:10; doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0007

  • ·  Of a Peculiar Lead-Ore of Germany, and the Use Thereof

Phil. Trans. 1665 1:10-11; doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0008

I did take a look at one of the articles and found it easy to read, other than the spelling. Here’s a little more about the Philosophical Transactions from the Royal Society publishing website,

In 1662, the newly formed ‘Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge’ was granted a charter to publish by King Charles II and on 6 March 1665, the first issue of Philosophical Transactions was published under the visionary editorship of Henry Oldenburg, who was also the Secretary of the Society. … In 1886, the breadth and scope of scientific discovery had increased to such an extent that it became necessary to divide the journal into two, Philosophical Transactions A and B, covering the physical sciences and the life sciences respectively.

This initiative is part of a larger commitment to open access publishing (more from GrrlScientist’s Oct. 26, 2011 posting),

Opening its historical archive is part of the Royal Society’s ongoing commitment to open access in scientific publishing. It coincides with The Royal Society’s 5th annual Open Access Week, and also comes soon after the launch of its first ever fully open access journal, Open Biology. All of the Royal Society’s journals provide free access to selected papers, hot-off-the-presses.

There are more details about when and which journals give full open access in GrrlScientist’s post.