THE PUBLISHING PROBLEM—A KITE FOR POLICY MAKERS
| Pages | 236-249 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026369 |
| Published date | 01 April 1965 |
| Date | 01 April 1965 |
| Author | J.E. MORPURGO |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
THE PUBLISHING PROBLEM—
A KITE FOR POLICY MAKERS
J. E. MORPURGO
Director General, National Book League
THE communications block is undeniable and its removal imperative. No
modern society—and least of all Britain—can prosper unless it hastens
the process which translates original thought into executive decision, and
amongst the activities which contribute to this end few are
as
important as
an improvement in the methods whereby the results of research achieve
publication in journal and book. Yet, as we sit in common-room and
committee-room debating current difficulties, it would be as well if from
time to time we were to accept the fact that not
all
research
is
vital
to
anyone
but the researcher and that not all publication
is
essential. It would be fatu-
ous if we were to organize improvement and enlargement in order to make
possible an even larger block.
In recent years much effort has gone into considering means whereby
academic publication can be improved, hastened, and made more nearly
financially viable. Comparatively little thought has been given to the
changed and still changing sociology of scholarship and research. Yet the
spread of scholarly activities from ivory tower and Gothic library to pre-
fabricated, waiting-for-Basil Spence study block and laboratory has in-
creased enormously the number of those whose natural pride presses them
to the conviction that what they do must be important and must be com-
municated to their contemporaries, whilst the fragmentation of disciplines
has prevented a compensatory increase in the number of those who can
benefit from such communication. Further, the growth in the number of
universities and research institutions has brought with it an intensification
in the notion 'publish or
be
damned!' The struggle for recognition and
pro-
motion is now as fierce among junior academics as it ever was amongst
cavalry subalterns and the lushness of print upon full-bodied paper
as
satis-
fying and perhaps
as
necessary
as
the favours of the colonel's
lady.
All this at
a time when the economics of publishing are more than ever before un-
sympathetic to non-commercial and slow-moving production.
If we are to handle the considerable increase in learned traffic which we
must expect in the next decades, we must choose between
an
increase in the
number of vehicles available to scholars and some form of heightened
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