Some Trends in American Astronomical Publications

Abstract

We have studied the papers published in 1910, 1920,... 1980 in the three principal American astronomical journals to derive the following results: The total annual publication rate was relatively constant until World War II, followed by a doubling time of 7.8 years and with a recent slower rate. The average paper lengths, normalized to the same page content, has tripled since 1940, with a much larger increase in information. But the most surprising result is the virtual disappearance of the very short papers (less than one page) that accounted for one-third of the papers published earlier in the century. While papers are becoming longer, authors are writing fewer papers per person (by a factor of 0.6). The fraction of theoretical papers has increased from 5% early in the century to a current 33%. The strong tendency for single- author papers early in the century has been replaced by a current average of double-author theoretical papers and triple-author observational papers.

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