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and radarastronomy, and molecular genetics, not to speak of particle physics 
and the many sub-fields in the realm of chemistry and its applications. 
The explosion has taken the form of continuation of the classical printed 
media -- books and journals -- as well as a panoply of other visual and 
audiovisual media. For the purposes of this paper, we shall confine 
Ourselves to the medlum we call, perhaps too loosely, the scientific 
journal and its apparent evolution. 
In absolute numbers of journals, the lion's share continues to be 
produced in Europe and North America (Tables 1, 2). The tabular material 
presented is taken from Unesco's Statistical Yearbook, 1981 (the latest 
edition available), a volume which carries compilations of data from the 
late 1960s onwards. The figures presented are those reported by the 
Member States of the Organization, that is to say the figures are official 
submittals and thus the most definitive available. There is lack of 
uniformity of response among the reporting authorities, however, some of 
the 157 Member States reporting consistently and in great detail, others 
erratically and with grouped statistics, while still others choose to report 
very infrequently or not at all. The statistical compilation, which is 
managed by Unesco's Office of Statistics, is therefore incomplete. The 
fragmentary character of this collection of data on scientific journals can 
be expected to continue in the future, yet with some improvement 
possible during the decade to come. 
  
  
  
Scientific Journals and Their Classification 
Throughout the world, there are somewhere between 57,000 and 
90,000 specialized journals dealing with some aspect of science, according 
to the Committee on Publications and Communications of the Inter- 
national Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). In the Soviet Union alone, 
the State Publishing Committee has told the author that about 18,000 
scientific journals are published annually, in a number of languages, 
covering many disciplines. 
What, indeed, is a 'scientific journal'? In compiling the present 
paper, there was no alternative to acceptance of the classifications used 
in the preparation of Unesco's Statistical Yearbook, adapted as the 
vertical headings in Tables | through 6. In about half the cases, the Unesco 
categories are groupings taken from the Universal Decimal Classification 
(UDC) adopted by the International Standards Organization (while the 
other half are individual UDC categories). Agriculture, for example, has 
been grouped with Forestry, Stockbreeding, Hunting and Fishing -- all, in 
fact, distinct professional pursuits. 
  
Missing from our analysis are UDC headings 4 (Linguistics and 
Philology) and 70-78, 791-792 (Town Planning, Architecture, Plastic Arts, 
Minor Arts, Photography, Music, Film, Cinema, Theatre, Radio and 
Television). While it can be argued that the latter group is for the most 
part removed from the world of science, the former group should be 
included in future analytical breakdowns. 
  
Despite the paucity of reporting on journals published in North 
America (Table 2), it is known from non-governmental sources that the 
total number of journals published in the United States and Canada has 
risen steadily and significantly since 1946. While this is a direct result of 
Richardson 2