'Devant le Deluge' and Other Essays on Early Modern Scientific Communication

For more than forty years, librarians and others have come to rely upon David Kronick's knowledge and expertise of the history and development of scientific journals. His writings have blazed a trail through the uncharted territory of scientific serial publishing. This volume brings together for the first time a collection of fifteen articles that discuss particular aspects of scientific communication from the early days of its ascendancy, 'before the information explosion.' The essays examine topics such as editorial policy in the early journals, the economic side of scientific publishing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, aspects of journal indexing, early modern scientific networks, and the issues of authorship and authority. The whole constitutes a body of work that reveals both the richness and scope for further inquiry that has motivated Kronick for decades. All are topics that librarians as well as students and scholars in the philosophy of science, the sociology of science, the history of science, and the rhetoric of science will be certain to find enlightening and inspiring.