Scholarly Communication in the History Discipline
The interesting thing about scholarly communication in the history discipline, to me, is how little it’s changed; the few trends that are relatively new within the discipline have arisen incrementally. One element that has changed very little is the emphasis on print materials. The shift to e-resources has happened much slower within the history field than it has in other fields, even within the humanities. There are a few explanations for this. One is that historians work mainly with primary sources, which appear mainly in print form (Griffiths et al. 3).
Another explanation is that monographs (books) are still considered the primary scholarly output for historians, and most books are available only in print. In fact, monographs are valued much more highly than journal articles for tenure, and because they are primarily published in print, there has not been a shift to electronic resources (Griffiths et al. 4). Moreover, electronically published materials are not valued as highly as their print versions for tenure purposes, so there is a significant incentive to keep publishing print materials (Griffiths et al. 10).
Another aspect of the discipline that has changed very little is the sense that most historians are relatively individualistic. This is reflected in the emphasis on formal communication, and the lack of collaboration within the discipline (Budd 229). Most of the communication between historians takes place through book reviews and through conference proceedings (Griffiths et al. 13). The peer review process is considered incredibly important by historians, and very little attention is given to non-peer reviewed works, which is partially why scholarly communication between historians is relatively slow and formal (Griffiths et al. 8).
One notable change within the last 20 years is the increase of multi-authored works, which are usually a compendia of conference papers. The authors don’t collaborate for this works: they merely submit their chapter and allow it to be compiled in a larger volume. These works are rarely published, or even available, online (Griffiths et al. 8).
One final change within recent decades is the increase in number of scholarly journals. This has happened in part because the field has become more specialized, revealing an increased demand for highly specific journals. Book reviews provide the bulk of most journals, because journal articles are not valued much for tenure purposes. The reasons why a historian might write an article as opposed to a monograph are that they are staking out a position on a debated topic, testing out an argument for a later monograph, or to drum up interest in one’s research for a later monograph. Another reason is that graduate students can build up a record of publication quicker by publishing articles, which are peer-reviewed much quicker than books (Griffiths et al. 6-7).
Works Cited
Budd, John. The Changing Academic Library: Operations, Culture, Environments. Chicago, Association of College and Research Libraries, 2018.
Griffiths, Rebecca J., et al. "Scholarly Communications in the History Discipline." Ithaka S+R. Ithaka S+R. 31 August 2006. Web. 16 October 2021. https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.22343