This year marks the 75th Anniversary of the Australian Journals of Scientific Research (AJSR) which represent a remarkable archive of more than 70,000 articles.
CSIRO Publishing and the Australian Academy of Science celebrated the anniversary at a gathering at Ian Potter House in Canberra on Thursday 7 December.
The event marked the long-running collaboration between the Academy and CSIRO, which publishes 1,000 articles every year under 14 AJSR titles.
The growing archive reflects Australia’s rich history of science as well as Australian scientists’ continuing impact on international research. Communicating the outcomes of that science in journals creates building blocks for future learning and understanding.
The origins of AJSR
Development of science journals started to gain momentum early in the 20th century, but was halted by World War II. There was a shortage of resources, and printing equipment needed to be prioritised for government requirements.
Much of the research that might have been published in peacetime was also paused for security reasons, so by the mid-1940s there was a considerable backlog of work waiting to be published and not enough journals or local publishing capability.
In 1946, the CSIR (now CSIRO) proposed the establishment of an Australian Journal of Scientific Research-Series A, Physical Sciences and Series B, Biological Sciences-to capture the best of Australian research findings.
