Abstract:
What sorts of changes should we expect to see following the advent of a new specialist journal? Will the flow of articles from the related subdiscipline which appear in generalist journals diminish? Will the new journal act as a catalyst? One can easily imagine that papers of a more specialist character will be attracted to the new journal, but these may be diverted from other journals, or represent a sort of latent supply, the work of ‘discouraged’
scholars who have found no outlet in the generalist journals. It may also turn out that, almost by tacit agreement between authors and
editors, the new journal comes to be ‘allocated’ papers on narrowly defined
or limited-interest topics, while the space previously given to such
work in generalist journals remains available but is filled-appropriately-
by papers still within the purview of the subdiscipline, but of wider than specialist appeal.
