The Royal Society Journal archive is now online and free!

[pokerfan]

This is hugh! :bounce:

The Royal Society has today announced that its world-famous historical journal archive – which includes the first ever peer-reviewed scientific journal – has been made permanently free to access online.

Around 60,000 historical scientific papers are accessible via a fully searchable online archive, with papers published more than 70 years ago now becoming freely available.

The Royal Society is the world’s oldest scientific publisher, with the first edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society appearing in 1665. Henry Oldenburg – Secretary of the Royal Society and first Editor of the publication – ensured that it was “licensed by the council of the society, being first reviewed by some of the members of the same”, thus making it the first ever peer-reviewed journal.

http://royalsociety.org/uploadedImages/Royal_Society_Content/News_and_Issues/Science_News/Philosophical%20Transactions%201,%20IM005244.jpg

Treasures in the archive include Isaac Newton’s first published scientific paper, geological work by a young Charles Darwin, and Benjamin Franklin’s celebrated account of his electrical kite experiment. And nestling amongst these illustrious papers, readers willing to delve a little deeper into the archive may find some undiscovered gems from the dawn of the scientific revolution – including accounts of monstrous calves, grisly tales of students being struck by lightning, and early experiments on to how to cool drinks “without the Help of Snow, Ice, Haile, Wind or Niter, and That at Any Time of the Year.”

http://royalsociety.org/news/Royal-Society-journal-archive-made-permanently-free-to-access

[NYC_SKP]

1. This is huge, Hoo Rah!

I used to be able to access original documents at the NY Public Library but no more, even if I still lived there.

Making these things electronically available is potentially a paradigm shift in technological progress (along with the same being done with other collections).

ETA I searched and found and downloaded the Franklin - Kite letter in less than a minute!

* Benjamin Franklin

A Letter of Benjamin Franklin, Esq; to Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. concerning an Electrical KitePhil. Trans. 1751 47:565-567; doi:10.1098/rstl.1751.0096
1751-1752 research-article A Letter of Benjamin Franklin, Esq; to Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. concerning an Electrical Kite Benjamin Franklin The Royal Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve...

:bounce:

[Lucinda]

2. Very very cool!

Thanks for the heads-up!

[seacaves]

3. I remember going through this journal as a grad student

at UW-Madison. I would spend days upon days reading and writing and just being fascinated by all the information.




So glad to see them on line. Thanks for the post.

[Octafish]

4. Thank you, pokerfan!

PDF of Franklin (...drawing the electric fire from clouds...):

http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/47/565.full.pdf+html?sid=491066f9-1f77-4232-a45c-3e859a60867e

[JohnnyRingo]

5. K&R

Thanx for posting.

[Tansy_Gold]

6. This is a most disturbing development

Because I have to WORK and reading all this is far more interesting than WORK!!

Thank you, pokerfan. This is marvelous!