re, 
his 
IS 
2. Present State 
  
Periodicals are supposed to increase exponentially as can be judged from figure 1. 
We see there will be about one million journals earthwide by the year 2000. That 
means one scientific periodical per something like 6,000 inhabitants of any 
country. The impact of this fact has positive and negative aspects. 
Number of 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
periodicals 
A 
408 : 
: / 
/ 
407 5 
/ 
4. 2 
40 > 
L9 
S #4 
: & 
3 3 
10 P 
"o 
x3" 
5 
ef 
10° 4 
a 
/ 
10 ^ 
A / 
A 
Z 5 
x wear 
1700 1800 1900 2000 
Ixponential increase of earthwide professional literature 
(after DE SOLLA PRICE 1971) 
Figure 1 
A growing of the number of periodicals denotes an increase in manpower and po- 
tential of research. This is doubtless positive. Yet we should check in how far 
this corresponds also to an increase in knowledge. 
Figure 2 shows that 70 percent of all knowledge having been published can be de- 
rived from nothing but 13 percent of all periodicals. Thus, the exponential in- 
crease of journals does not correspond to a likewise growing of research re- 
sults, but may contribute towards publicity of new achievements. In addition, 
promotion of researchers depend, inter alia and at least in some countries, on 
the number of publications they have on their record; this feature is known as 
"publish or perish". Further, one must bear in mind that Some papers in pro- 
ceedings of conferences are not necessarily compiled for communicating new achieve- 
ments but rather to be allotted travel funds for participating at the meeting. 
Summarising these considerations, we find quite some redundancy in scientific 
publications. 
Hothmer 2