Predecessors of preprint servers

Although there was an early experiment in the 1960s with the central distribution of paper preprints in the biomedical sciences, these sciences have not been early adopters of electronic preprint servers. Some barriers to the development of a ‘preprint culture’ in the biomedical sciences are described. Multiple factors that, from the 1960s, fostered the transition from a paper-based preprint culture in high energy physics to an electronic one are also described. A new revolution in scientific publishing, in which journals come to be regarded as an overlay on electronic preprint databases, will probably overtake some areas of research much more quickly than others. Learned Publishing (2001)14, 7–13 James E. Till Predecessors of preprint servers 7 L E A R N E D P U B L I S H I N G V O L . 1 4 N O . 1 J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 1 stitution: ‘His research community in high energy theoretical physics had, during the 1980s, developed a culture of massive preprint distribution’.13 Ginsparg himself has suggested that a feature of his own research discipline that may account, at least in part, for its early adoption of such a culture was because ‘the author and reader communities (and consequently as well the referee community) essentially coincide’.14 An obvious question is: why didn’t an analogous ‘culture of massive preprint distribution’ also flourish in those areas of the biomedical sciences where overlapping ‘invisible colleges’ of authors, readers, and referees also may exist? The present article has two purposes. The first is to identify some of the major factors that led to the termination of the IEG experiment on the centralized dissemination of biomedical preprints. The second is to outline a number of factors that appear to have played a significant role in the early adoption of a preprint culture by researchers in HEP.In considering these various factors, it should be borne in mind that those interested in sociological perspectives on the diffusion of technological innovations may ‘challenge the demand for causal sociological explanations of multifaceted historical developments’.15 The article will conclude with a historical vignette selected to illustrate a premise that the shift from ‘atom-based’ to ‘bit-based’ distribution of information16 will have as profound an effect on the dissemination of research results as did the shift from handwritten manuscripts to printed ones.