Editorial, 2000 March 27:

The Role of the Scholarly Societies Project

Table of Contents

The Importance of Scholarly Societies
Directory Information for Scholarly Societies
Historical Information on Scholarly Societies
Historical Information about Journals of Scholarly Societies
Assessment of the Role of the Scholarly Societies Project

The Importance of Scholarly Societies
Historical Importance	Right from their earliest beginnings, scholarly societies played a major role in bringing scholars together in meetings where they could discuss and exchange ideas. In the pre-1800 period, by far the majority of scholarly journals were published by scholarly societies. It is for this reason that the Reuss Repertorium is so valuable a tool.
Present-Day Importance	Even today, scholarly societies still play a very active role in arranging meetings for scholarly exchange. Although scholarly societies no longer publish the vast majority of scholarly journals, the material that they do publish is often of superior quality, and is generally more reasonably priced than journals from commercial publishers.
*Comment* Because scholarly societies are, and have been, so critical to the scholarly enterprise, it is essential that information about them be readily available. In the sections below we examine various sources of information on scholarly societies.

Directory Information for Scholarly Societies (covering many subject areas) Directory information typically includes the society name, contact information, founding date, and subject areas of interest. It may also include the location of the society, number of members, and the major journals.
Encyclopedia of Associations published by the Gale Group	print version Internet version (Associations Unlimited)	444,000 scholarly & non-scholarly societies only U.S. societies, and societies of international scope fee-based
Yearbook of International Organizations edited by the Union of International Associations.	print version Internet version	11,000 scholarly & non-scholarly societies only societies of international scope fee-based for full service free access to URLs of some societies (no indication of the number to which this applies)
World Guide to Scientific Associations and Learned Societies published by K.G. Saur Verlag	print version published at about 4-year intervals no Internet version	17,000 scholarly societies across the world fee-based 1998 ed. has only a handful of URLs
World of Learning published by Europa Publications.	annual print version no Internet version	includes information on 400 major scholarly societies around the world fee-based
directories for geographical areas	print version usually	many countries or clusters of countries have directories of societies (generally including all types of societies)
Scholarly Societies Project sponsored by the University of Waterloo Library	Internet	1600 scholarly societies across the world free
*Comment* The Scholarly Societies Project offers free Internet access to directory information (including links to websites) for a selection of scholarly societies across the world. In order to ensure that the selection includes the most important societies in each country, a comprehensive review is underway, and is scheduled for completion by mid 2001. The Project is currently the largest free Internet-accessible database on scholarly societies across the world.

Historical Information on Scholarly Societies Sometimes determining even the founding date of a society can be a daunting task. Establishing when name changes occurred is often more difficult, since existing documentation can be hard to find.
Historical monographs on one or more scholarly societies	International Encyclopedia of Learned Societies and Academies (edited by Joseph C. Kiger).	Provides historical (and other) information on 103 important national societies and academies across the world (outside the U.S.A.).
	Centenary, bicentenary, etc. commemorative monographs	Many societies that were founded more than a century ago have issued commemorative monographs. These can generally be identified using rich online library catalogues or rich printed library catalogues.
historical journal articles on one or more societies	ISIS Cumulative Bibliography: A Bibliography of the History of Science formed from ISIS Critical Bibliographies; published by the History of Science Society (HSS).	The *Institutions* section of this bibliography includes references to journal articles and monographs on the history of scholarly societies. Most societies covered are scientific or technical. The cumulations go back to 1915.
*Comment* In 1999 a pilot project was begun within the Project to address the difficulty in determining historical data on scholarly societies. The pilot project, entitled Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum (Inventory of the Oldest Scholarly Societies), is confined to societies founded up to and including 1799. It uses the sources above to help determine as well as possible the history of name changes for the societies, as well as other interesting historical details.

Historical Information about Journals of Scholarly Societies It can sometimes be rather difficult to establish the correct title, publishing years and volume numbers for older journals of scholarly societies. The problem is exacerbated by frequent changes in the society's name caused by political upheavals, for example those in France from 1792 to 1870. An additional problem for historians and librarians is that the abbreviations used in the older literature for citing journal titles are especially challenging to decipher when society journals are concerned.
Publishing Information for Older Journals of Scholarly Societies	Scudder's Catalogue of Scientific Serials	covers journals published up to 1876 restricted to scientific journals
	rich online library catalogues	Coverage and quality vary. See individual annotations.
	rich printed library catalogues	Coverage and quality vary. See individual annotations.
Indexes covering Articles in Older Society Journals	Reuss Repertorium	articles in society journals only covers articles published up to the early 19th century
Indexes covering Articles in Older Society Journals	Royal Society of London Catlogue of Scientific Literature	articles in society journals, as well as independent ones covers articles from 1800 - 1900 restricted to scientific articles
*Comment* In 1999 a pilot project was begun within the Project to address the difficulty in determining historical data on scholarly societies. The pilot project, entitled Repertorium Veterrimarum Societatum Litterariarum (Inventory of the Oldest Scholarly Societies), is confined to societies founded up to and including 1799. It uses information from the sources in the above to create records for the major journals of each society (including abbreviations used for the titles of these journals). It also uses the sources above to help determine as well as possible the history of name changes for the societies. Ultimately a search engine will be provided to allow users to ask historically interesting questions. An example would be: Which journals of scholarly societies were being published between 1742 and 1749?

Assessment of the Role of the Scholarly Societies Project
Directory Information	The Scholarly Societies Project is currently the largest free Internet-accessible database on scholarly societies across the world. We are working towards providing fuller coverage of the most important scholarly societies across the world.
Historical Information on Scholarly Societies	A pilot project for the Pre-1800 Historical Area of the Scholarly Societies Project was begun in 1999. Historical pages for nearly 100 societies founded prior to 1800 are now available.
Historical Information about Journals of Scholarly Societies	The historical pages in the pilot project for the Pre-1800 Historical Area of the Scholarly Societies Project also provide an enumeration of the principal journals of these societies (societies founded prior to 1800); the journals are enumerated up to at least the mid 20th century. Abbreviations used in the 19th century for these journals are also given.
*Conclusion* The Scholarly Societies Project does not have the staff resources of a large commercial undertaking, and, consequently, cannot provide the level of completeness that some commercial products do for societies of a particular scope (e.g. U.S. societies and international-scope societies). Nor can it provide the level of completeness that some subject-specific free directories on the Internet do. Nonetheless, at present its database is unique in that it is the largest to include scholarly societies covering all subjects without restriction by country. Furthermore it provides a growing number of files of special interest to the historian and librarian.

Published 2000, March 27
(Amended 2004, May 25)
Jim Parrott, Editor
Scholarly Societies Project.

Overview of the Scholarly Societies Project

facilitating access to information about scholarly societies across the world since 1994
last modified: 2009, December 27

NEWS/EDITORIAL 2009, December 27

Fifteen Years of the Scholarly Societies Project

4157 Scholarly Societies, 3832 Websites

Search Engine By Subject [83] By Country By Language By Founding Dates

Inventory of the Oldest Scholarly Societies (1323-1849)

Special Kinds of Scholarly Societies

Academies and Royal Societies of Broad Scope [272] International Unions [88] Federations of Scholarly Societies [198]

Special Resources at Scholarly Society Websites

Meeting/Conference Announcement Lists Standards [59] Full-Text Serials

Scholarly Societies and Scholarly Communication [essays]

Meeting Sponsors and Publishers Bibliographic Work Interactions with Commercial Publishers

Crisis in Scholarly Publishing Creating a Society Web Site Bailey's Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

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