Continuity and Change in the Production of Academic Journals: The China Quarterly then and now

Extract

Looking back over three decades during which I had close involvement in the production of The China Quarterly, I am struck by both the degrees of continuity and by the forces for change. On the continuity side, the role of the host institution, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has been vitally important to its survival and development to become the pre-eminent journal in the field. At the same time, continuity would have been neither evident nor achievable without the stimuli provided by the current history of China and by those working in China studies. On the side of change, the major driving force has been the overall effect of advances in technology. Successively since the 1990s, these have transformed the means by which authors' contributions are composed and submitted, the stages in conducting the editorial process, and the ways in which the journal is printed, published, marketed and delivered.