Challenging the Matthew Effect

This book illustrates how the Finnish learned societies succeeded in their efforts to distribute their publications, to acquire foreign journals for their libraries and to link themselves into the international networks in a period of increasing scientific competition. The focus is on four societies: the Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica, the Finnish Literature Society, the Finnish Antiquarian Society and the Finnish Dental Society, which represent different branches of scholarship and also different strategies for promoting international networking. These societies were young, poor and geographically peripheral when they began their publishing activities ‒ hence constituting and interesting case from the viewpoint of the Matthew effect.