Aileen Fyfe, unearthing a 1963 publishing code for the UK’s Royal Society:
The Code was written at a time when the presence of commercial publishers was becoming more apparent in the world of scientific journals, and concerns were being raised over ownership and control.
The Code insists that the ideal body to run a journal is a scientific society, but if that is not possible, then editorial and financial policy should be in the hands of academics, and that copyright should be retained by authors.
Fifty-six years later and the five items hold up well. There’s a poignancy, too, reading them now—in the wake of the publishing oligopoly.