Krakowska prasa naukowa i fachowa 1989-1998 (przegląd tematyczny)

Abstract

The outline contains a synthetic overview of the scientific, specialist, and popular science periodicals published in Krakow in 1989-1998, classified according to the criterion of subject matter (524 titles in total). The picture of the Krakow professional journals as examined in this cross section is particularly variegated. The statistics show that the whole universe of science, technology, and applied knowledge is within the scope of interest of the publishers and institutions operating there. By volume, the social sciences are at the lead with 22.73% of the periodicals on offer (120 titles), the humanities enjoy an equally great interest with 17.23% (91), the technical sciences - 14.96% (79), the earth sciences - 14.02% (74), and medicine - 10% (54), as well as the slightly less represented mathematical and natural sciences - 8.9% (47) and agriculture 8.14% (43); the picture is completed by 20 titles with general profile (3.79%). This distribution - as demonstrated by comparative data - is a peculiar derivative of the local scientific infrastructure, and it expresses the directions of research conducted in Krakow. The outline makes also a preliminary evaluation featuring the magazines of greatest significance to the development of the fundamental research. It is worth mentioning that as many as 25% of the Polish periodicals included in the “Science Citation Index” (8 of 31 Polish titles) are published in Krakow. The biological sciences have a particularly strong representation - 5 tiles (“Folia Biologica”, “Acta Physiologiae Plantarum”, “Folia His- tochemica et Cytobiologica”, and two series of “Acta Biologica Cracoviensia”), medical sciences are also appreciated - 2 titles (including “Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology” boasting the highest index IF - 1.114, and “Polish Journal of Pharmacology”), and nuclear physics represented by the prestigious periodical “Acta Physica Polonica В” (684 recognized publications were printed in it only during 1998). Among the humanities, linguistics enjoys a high esteem (4 titles - “Rocznik Slawistyczny”, “Biuletyn PTJ”, “Slavia Orientalis”, “Stylistyka”), theory of literature (“Ruch Literacki”), history (“Studia Historyczne” and “Historyka”), and philosophy (“Kwartalnik Filozoficzny”). The picture is certainly not complete, but it seems to fairly reflect Krakow’s contribution to the world development of exact sciences, and to corroborate the potential of the local research institutions.