par Ginette Gablot
19891990, in La Revue des revues no 8
Scientific journals in France, their situation and evolution
About 1 500 scientific journals are published in France, mostly by scholarly organizations, associations, or laboratories. The author traces their history since the 18th century, with special emphasis on the 19th century, when scientific journals greatly increased in number and underwent growing specialization. She also studies the problems libraries face in dealing with such a multitude of publications and analyzes the role they play in evaluating researchers. Even with the advent of more rapid and flexible means of communication, scientific journals nonetheless remain the privileged instrument for scientists, and still represent the necessary step towards scientific recognition. In the annex, the author presents the most significant data from a 1984 survey of French scientific and technical publications (p. 36-38).