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Philosophical Transactions, the journal published by the Royal Society in London, is the longest-running scientific periodical in the world. It has been circulating knowledge since 1665. It began as a news-sheet compiled by an entrepreneurial editor eager to bring readers the latest news and reviews in natural philosophy (as science was then known), but since the early eighteenth-century, it has been a venue for the publication of original research papers. The editorial processes the Royal Society developed after 1752 went on to form the prototype for the modern system of peer review that is now widely used by academic journals. But, getting published was only half the story: how did the printed knowledge circulate? In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Royal Society gifted copies of its journals to scholarly individuals and institutions around the world; while a new wave of scientific journals emerged that specialized in reporting, reviewing and abstracting scientific knowledge for those without access to the originals. The changes in the physical format, editorial processes and circulation methods of the Transactions offer us a fascinating a window into the development of scholarly journals, and scientific communication itself.

Join scholar Aileen Fyfe and the Library's Assistant Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts, Jamie Cumby, as they consider scientific periodical publishing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the Royal Society’s legendary journal.

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