The Scholarly Publishing Scene — the Maxwell Effect
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Against the Grain Manuscript 8480 The Scholarly Publishing Scene — The Maxwell Effect Myer Kutz Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. An eBook works for Shakespeare. For patient care, you need a database. The R2 Digital Library database takes health sciences eBooks beyond a routine web search. Visit R2library.com for a free trial. [email protected] • R2library.com • 800.345.6425 The Scholarly Publishing Scene — The Maxwell Effect Column Editor: Myer Kutz (President, Myer Kutz Associates, Inc.) <[email protected]> could say that I’ve been remiss during my As of this writing, in August 2019, shortly Maxwell was hired to run the new organiza- years writing this column in not talking after Epstein’s death, there has been a spate tion together with Paul Rosbaud, an Austrian I about Robert Maxwell, who reigned of articles about Ghislaine’s having been a metallurgist who had spied for the British on over the hugely successful Pergamon Press British socialite, linked with Prince Andrew, Nazi scientific activities and smuggled reports for nearly 40 years, except for four years in Donald Trump and Bill Clinton; Epstein’s on German weaponry. When Butterworths the 1960s, when Saul Steinberg of Leasco girlfriend, after her move to New York in the abandoned the joint venture in 1951, Maxwell Data Processing wrested control away from early 1990s; and later allegedly the procurer and Rosbaud bought it for 13,000 pounds. Maxwell. (Maxwell had wanted to mount of underage girls, which she denies. When her They named their new company Pergamon, Pergamon journals on Leasco’s computers so father is mentioned, the focus is often on his after an ancient city near the Aegean Sea, which they could be distributed electronically — an having been a media mogul considered a rival became highly influential during the Hellenistic idea 25 years ahead of its time.) Maxwell, to Rupert Murdoch. Sometimes, his founding Period. (Rosbaud left the company in 1956.) justifiably, was one of the key figures — if not of Pergamon Press goes entirely unmentioned. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Max- the key figure — in the rise of the commercial STM publishing isn’t sexy enough, apparently. well supercharged Pergamon’s STM journal STM journal publishing business in the years Pergamon’s founding dates back to 1951. publishing. (The company also published after World War II. It was a time when the During World War II, Maxwell, a poor Czech reference books.) He expanded the journal list scope and size of government and university Jew, was part of a group of European exiles by introducing a new title whenever research- sponsorship of scientific research in one dis- who fought for the British army. After the ers and practitioners began to work on a new cipline after another accelerated dramatically. war, when he worked for British intel- scientific or technical discipline or sub-disci- I’m prompted to write about Max- ligence in Berlin, he got a foot into pline. He easily outstripped competitors. By well because his name has surfaced in publishing by importing Springer 1959, Pergamon was publishing 40 journals, press accounts of the Jeffrey Epstein Verlag publications into the UK. four times as many as Elsevier was publishing scandal and Epstein’s having been At that time, the British govern- in English. By 1965, Pergamon’s journal found dead in a federal holding ment, petitioned by eminent list numbered 150. Elsevier didn’t reach 50 pen. The two men are linked scientists to fix the sorry state until four years later. In the 1970s, Maxwell through Maxwell’s daughter, of British scientific journal launched a boatload of life science journals Ghislaine, the youngest of his publishing, formed a joint — a hundred in 1974 alone, according to one nine children and his companion venture with Butterworths account. (These numbers come from a June on his travels to the United States. and Springer. continued on page 72 Against the Grain / November 2019 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> 71 be asked a question. The correct answer would He bought the London based Mirror Group The Scholarly Publishing Scene allow you to be seated and you would be given Newspapers in 1984 . He bought the American from page 71 something to drink. Give the wrong answer, publisher, Macmillian, for $2.6 billion. He and you would have to remain standing. was chairman of a British professional football 27, 2017 long-form Guardian article, “Is the Whatever his temperament and the way he team. He owned, among other properties, Staggeringly Profitable Business of Scientific treated his subordinates, he did know how to Nimbus Records, Prentice Hall Information Publishing Bad for Science?” by Stephen Bu- run a journal publishing business. Sales results Services and the Berlitz language schools. He ranyi.) So much publishing activity could be were terrific. According toBrian Cox, journal also owned a half-share of MTV in Europe justified by two insights: that journals covering circulation grew by five to ten percent each year and other European television interests. In the same discipline or sub-discipline don’t during the 1960s. Prices must have increased, 1990, he founded a transnational newspaper, actually compete for subscribers and readers as well. One advantage of continually growing The European, which I can actually remember (papers are unique, after all) and subscription the number of titles, Cox notes, was that older, reading. (It folded in December 1998.) prices can be raised even as more and more established titles would subsidize newer titles His reputation, outside of STM journal journals are being published — providing, of that were still finding their audience. publishing was in bad shape. Except for the course, that libraries have the wherewithal. If you were to propose a candidate for Mirror Group, British press barons refused Maxwell knew how to make his journals founder of the modern commercial journal to sell their properties to him. The satirical succeed. Titles often started with “Interna- publishing business, could you find a better weekly, Private Eye, called him the “Bouncing tional Journal of,” a feature which recognized candidate than Robert Maxwell? He was Czech,” a nickname Prime Minister Harold the growing globalization of scientific and cosmopolitan; he’s said to have spoken nine Wilson had bestowed on him when he was an technical work and research. He was adept at languages and he spoke BBC English. He was MP. He was continuously litigious. drawing journal editors and contributors close no doubt able to exhibit enthusiasm for scien- In 1991, Maxwell was so much in debt to him. According to a brief memoir written tific discovery and for the means of reporting (he’d recently scooped up the NY Daily News by Brian Cox, who worked at Pergamon on discoveries. He was adept at deferring to when it was in bad straights, not a smart fi- for three decades, Maxwell himself made the wishes of scientists and he knew how to nancial move) that he had to sell Pergamon. telephone calls to them and correspondence pamper them with his nosh and his wines. He Elsevier bought the company, which published appeared above his signature. And he wasn’t managed to become the confidant of his authors thousands of reference works, in addition to the bashful about wining and dining them, often and editors, through flattery, no doubt, and with journals, for 440 million pounds — something at Pergamon’s splendid headquarters at a 53- his continual telephoning and correspondence. like a billion pounds today — which strikes room mansion, Headington Hill Hall, to which He recognized an obligation to please editors me as a steal. Then his life really ended. He the company began migrating in 1959 from its and authors with speed of journal article pub- went missing off his yacht near the Canary original base in London. lication, as well as with the physical quality Islands and was later fished out of the sea. It It had been built for the Morrells, a local of his journals. He was fearless in expanding was, most likely, suicide. He was facing not brewery family, who lived there for 114 years, Pergamon’s journal portfolio. There were only mounting debts, but also the impending until it was used as a military hospital during his insights about pricing and competition. revelation that he had bilked his employees’ World War II, then as a rehabilitation center af- He ran his company like a dictator so that, I pension funds. (Conspiracy theories still ter the war ended. Maxwell leased Headington presume everything would be done his way, abound, however, perhaps due to allegations Hill Hall from the Oxford City Council, which which in his mind — and the results spoke for that he was an agent of Israel’s Mossad.) His had bought it from the Morrells. He and his themselves — was the right, and only way to death and disgrace may be the things he’ll be wife renovated the property. get done what had to be done. remembered for, more so, I would guess, than Maxwell was mercurial and autocratic. Unfortunately there was also a great ap- for his Pergamon stewardship — for better or According to Brian Cox, Maxwell’s office petite for status, fame, and fortune. Maxwell worse, depending on where you stand on the was located in the mansion’s largest room. His was driven around in a Rolls-Royce; there creation of modern commercial STM journal desk was in the corner furthest from the door.