Project description

Although the career path of women in the natural sciences is a popular topic in the sociology of science, there are few publications containing quantitative data on women’s publishing history. In order to close this gap, the "Publish or Perish?" project evaluated the German National Library’s metadata from collections of works on mathematics, physics, chemistry, pharmacology and biology published between 1900 and 1970. Bibliographic metadata were subjected to quantitative analysis in order to find answers to questions such as: what proportion of natural sciences publications between 1900 and 1970 were written by women? Did successful female scientists publish as much on average as their male colleagues? Did women publish more during certain phases within this period? The project utilised data from the Integrated Authority File (GND) on the authors and their publications to evaluate potential network relationships between female authors. Finally, by analysing bibliographic and GND data, the project assessed whether women's success in the natural sciences depended on how often they published and on their early participation in institutionalised scientific networks.

The project was proposed and realised by Suellen Dutra Pereira.

Results and further information

• Publish or Perish? Blog

Duration

August 2022 - January 2023

Contact

DH-Stipendien@dnb.de