Summary: question about history of journal article copyrighting

[Brian Simboli <brs4@lehigh.edu>]

(cross-posted)

Here are some notes by way of a very belated follow-up to the message I 
sent out about copyright and author ownership of content in journals. I 
have only had time to read just a bit of this material but a summary to 
the list is owed. Thanks to everyone who responded. (I haven't summarized 
some interesting things that were sent as personal correspondence.)

Brian Simboli
Lehigh University

1.  Items that were suggested :

An article that was suggested and that contains some fascinating history:
http://www.arl.org/arl/proceedings/138/guedon.html

Books:

S.H. Steinberg. Five hundred years of printing (1996).
King, McDonald, and Roderer. Scientific Journals in the United States:
Their Production, Use, and Economics.1981.

2. Here are some additional things that I came across (in some cases,
stumbled across) that might be of interest either in relation to this
question or just in general to scientific publishing aficionados.

See this link:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/RoMEO%20Studies%204.pdf

Ben Russak, "Scholarly Publishing in Western Europe and Great Britain: A 
Survey and Analysis".  Annals, AAPSS, 421, Sept. 1975. The ending of this 
article is really amusing:  "Long ago, Europe suffered a so-called Dark 
Age during which culture was sustained only by isolated monastic groups. 
The present attacks on copyright by new technologies and by scholars 
themselves must be viewed as a regrogressive step in that direction".

Mark Rose, Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright.

J.R. Schramm, a prof. of botany at University of Pennsylvania, on "Cost 
Analysis of Scholarly Periodical Printing: Preliminary Report of the 
Committee on Abstracting and Documentation of Scientific Literature of the 
National Research Council", which appeared in the American Philosophical 
Society Proceedings, volume 80, 1939.

Brian Simboli wrote:

> Can anyone suggest a book or article that addresses the history of 
> copyright in relation to scientific journals and the articles published 
> in them? E.g., in the history of scientific journals, has it always been 
> the case that authors have typically signed over copyright to a 
> publisher? Also, how historically have publishers of scientific journals 
> and authors understood ownership of the intellectual content of journal 
> articles?
>
> Big question, I realize!
>
> Thanks
Brian Simboli
Science Librarian
Library & Technology Services
E.W. Fairchild Martindale
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA 18015-3170
E-mail: brs4@lehigh.edu