Scholarly Publishing in Western Europe and Great Britain

Postwar Europe has produced a phenomenon of special interest to scholars and scientists: the use of English as the universal language of scientific communication. In the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Germany, scholarly books and journals are published in English. Huge publishing conglomerates have proliferated, all based on the English language. This medium for presenting knowledge and ideas to a world market has been an essential element of the unprecedented growth of scientific knowledge in our generation. Two other modern elements, the computer and the photocopying machine, have contributed to this growth. Now the computer and the photocopier threaten to destroy copyright—the essential basis for successful publishing— and are forcing traditional scholarly media such as monographs, proceedings publications and specialized journals out of business. Consideration is given to the possible end result that the computer and the photocopier may stifle the traditional forms of communication upon which the scientific community depends. Europe is the first arena in which an accommodation will be reached if the results of scholarship are to be unimpeded.