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The early 1960s were a jolly good time for collectors of reprints of papers from physics journals. Every author whose paper was published in any physics journal used to get 20-50 free reprints and any number more if he could pay...some with fancy covers.
And every department everywhere used to print 'reprint request cards' for the benefit of its faculty members. All you have to do is to collect a couple of dozen of those cards and post them free using the departmental budget to the author of any paper that catches your fancy anywhere in the world. And in a month's time you get the reprint you requested in your departmental mail which used to be flooded with such packets every day. The postman wasn't too happy to carry all those huge bundles and deliver them. So, the office assistant was sent to the post office to fetch them to the waiting crowd in the corridor.
Things changed within a decade. All physics journals everywhere save the Proceedings of the Royal Society (where I had two papers) went broke and stopped supplying free reprints to authors. What was worse was that authors were asked to pay publication charges if they wanted to get their papers printed in time...else await their turn in the 'unpaid queue'.
By then of course, Xerox came to the developed world so that reprints, free or paid, were a luxury. One just photocopied one's papers and distributed.
Not in India yet...it took another couple of decades for a decent and cheap Xerox facility to arrive.
I published quite a few papers in the American Journal of Physics but got very few reprint requests. The exception was a paper now called The Flickering Bulb Paradox...courtesy Edwin Taylor. To my surprise, I got 50 odd reprint requests of this paper even before the journal appeared in print. And then I came to know that API had started a new journal called Advanced Physics Abstracts or some such goofy thing.
The reprint requests were from all over the world, some on plain cards and others on fancy picture post cards. I collected the postage stamps for my kid-son. And discovered that the postage stamps of the US were the worst of all. While the best were from little-known little little countries like Fiji.
There was another Note I published in AJP with Krishna Kumar and Somenath Chakrabarty titled: Locating the Extraordinary Ray. The article looked nice to me but was ignored by the populace....they know better...
vox populi vox Dei...
But there was a reprint request for this from a Dr. P from a famous institution in Maryland. Since I didn't have the luxury of reprints, I photocopied the 2-page article and sent it to the gentleman wondering why he couldn't himself Xerox it for free from his wealthy institution.
And I received another reprint request from him for another paper jointly with my M.Sc. students.
And another...
After a decade of this, I received a letter from him saying that he was compiling Tables of Radiation Dosimetry for use in Cancer Medicine and claiming that any man who compiles vast Tables would never starve.
I replied congratulating him and all that...
After a couple of years, I received from him a huge packet containing his latest Tables. I thanked him for his kindness and junked them.
More and huger packets arrived duly...
Just before I was about to retire, I received from him a letter enclosing a printed form which he requested me to fill up, sign, and forward to the 'address given below'...
Guess what!!!
It was a Nomination Form for the Nobel Prize in Medicine...
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And every department everywhere used to print 'reprint request cards' for the benefit of its faculty members. All you have to do is to collect a couple of dozen of those cards and post them free using the departmental budget to the author of any paper that catches your fancy anywhere in the world. And in a month's time you get the reprint you requested in your departmental mail which used to be flooded with such packets every day. The postman wasn't too happy to carry all those huge bundles and deliver them. So, the office assistant was sent to the post office to fetch them to the waiting crowd in the corridor.
Things changed within a decade. All physics journals everywhere save the Proceedings of the Royal Society (where I had two papers) went broke and stopped supplying free reprints to authors. What was worse was that authors were asked to pay publication charges if they wanted to get their papers printed in time...else await their turn in the 'unpaid queue'.
By then of course, Xerox came to the developed world so that reprints, free or paid, were a luxury. One just photocopied one's papers and distributed.
I published quite a few papers in the American Journal of Physics but got very few reprint requests. The exception was a paper now called The Flickering Bulb Paradox...courtesy Edwin Taylor. To my surprise, I got 50 odd reprint requests of this paper even before the journal appeared in print. And then I came to know that API had started a new journal called Advanced Physics Abstracts or some such goofy thing.
The reprint requests were from all over the world, some on plain cards and others on fancy picture post cards. I collected the postage stamps for my kid-son. And discovered that the postage stamps of the US were the worst of all. While the best were from little-known little little countries like Fiji.
There was another Note I published in AJP with Krishna Kumar and Somenath Chakrabarty titled: Locating the Extraordinary Ray. The article looked nice to me but was ignored by the populace....they know better...
vox populi vox Dei...
But there was a reprint request for this from a Dr. P from a famous institution in Maryland. Since I didn't have the luxury of reprints, I photocopied the 2-page article and sent it to the gentleman wondering why he couldn't himself Xerox it for free from his wealthy institution.
And I received another reprint request from him for another paper jointly with my M.Sc. students.
And another...
After a decade of this, I received a letter from him saying that he was compiling Tables of Radiation Dosimetry for use in Cancer Medicine and claiming that any man who compiles vast Tables would never starve.
I replied congratulating him and all that...
After a couple of years, I received from him a huge packet containing his latest Tables. I thanked him for his kindness and junked them.
More and huger packets arrived duly...
Just before I was about to retire, I received from him a letter enclosing a printed form which he requested me to fill up, sign, and forward to the 'address given below'...
Guess what!!!
It was a Nomination Form for the Nobel Prize in Medicine...
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