1. Introduction
A quick survey has been run through the Astrolib mailing list on the penetration of non-professional (amateur/grand public) astronomy magazines (NPAMs) in professional and research libraries.
Although coming from a limited number of answers, the results allow very interesting conclusions: Sky & Telescope is the overall `winner', by being both the most frequently cited NPAM in the survey and the most read one in professional and research libraries.
About one fourth of the NPAMs on the shelves of US libraries have been published abroad. That percentage is more than double for the libraries in the rest of the world. In terms of languages, about one sixth of the NPAMs available in US libraries are published in a foreign language, while more than half of the NPAMs available in libraries of the rest of the world are published in a foreign language.
2. The Survey
The four points of the survey were phrased as follows:
Point 1: Identification of your library (affiliation, address).
Point 2: Is your library subscribing to non-professional astronomy magazines (NPAMs)? If so, please list a maximum of ten (10) of them by (rough) decreasing order of local readership (in your opinion).
Point 3: Among the NPAMs subscribed to by your library, are some of them published outside your country? If so, please list a maximum of five (5) of these.
Point 4: Among the NPAMs subscribed to by your library, are some of them totally or partially published in a language different from the official language of your country? If so, please list a maximum of five (5) of these.
3. The Answers
Answers were received in the name of 40 major astronomy libraries round the world.
Based on the affiliation listed in the first point of the survey, three groups were considered in addition to the total sample: `USA' (17), `Europe' (17) and the `RoW (Rest of the World)' (8). The `USA' sample contains one Canadian answer and the `Europe' sample includes both West and East European answers.
Because of the nature of the institutions represented, the answers for the ESO/Chile library were included in both the `Europe' and `RoW' samples, while the CFHT library answers were included in both the `USA' and `Europe' samples.
About 60 different magazines were mentioned in total, published in a dozen different languages and in about twenty different countries. We excluded Nature mentioned in a couple of instances, as well as a couple of publications from professional societies. We did retain Astronomy & Geophysics (published by the RAS) and the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada as both are also aiming at non-specialized audiences.
Because of the small samples (and thus the small numbers) involved, not too much should be read from the statistics, but clear trends can be derived as shown hereafter.
4. The Most Successful Magazines
As a classification based on local readership (or `success' in the corresponding institutions) was requested in the second point of the survey, a score of 10 has been attributed to the first magazine of the list, 9 to the second one, and so on. Most lists contained less than 10 items.
In a given sample, a specific magazine could then reach a maximum score of ten times the number of libraries represented in the sample. The corresponding percentage is thus called the `success rate' for that sample. A magazine rating 1.000 would be the first (most read) NPAM in each of the lists of the sample. A magazine rating 0.000 would not be mentioned in any list.
The most successful magazines are listed in Tables 1 to 4 for each of the sample considered.
| Rank | Journal | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Sky & Telescope (USA) | 0.953 |
| 2. | Astronomy (USA) | 0.540 |
| 3. | Mercury (USA) | 0.255 |
| 4. | L'Astronomie (FRA) | 0.230 |
| 5. | Sterne und Weltraum (DEU) | 0.155 |
| 6. | Astronomy Now (GBR) | 0.115 |
| 7. | Astronomy & Geophysics (GBR) | 0.105 |
| 8. | Ciel et Espace (FRA) | 0.090 |
| 9. | Astronomia (ITA) | 0.070 |
| 10. | Griffith Observer (USA) | 0.063 |
| Rank | Journal | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Sky & Telescope (USA) | 0.988 |
| 2. | Astronomy (USA) | 0.769 |
| 3. | Mercury (USA) | 0.300 |
| 4. | Griffith Observer (USA) | 0.156 |
| 5. | StarDate (USA) | 0.131 |
| 6. | Astronomy & Geophysics (GBR) | 0.119 |
| 7. | L'Astronomie (FRA) | 0.106 |
| 8. | AAVSO Publications (USA) | 0.100 |
| 9. | Astronomy Now (GBR) | 0.081 |
| 10. | Spaceflight (GBR) | 0.063 |
| Rank | Journal | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Sky & Telescope (USA) | 0.906 |
| 2. | L'Astronomie (FRA) | 0.388 |
| 3. | Sterne und Weltraum (DEU) | 0.353 |
| 4. | Astronomy (USA) | 0.294 |
| 5. | Mercury (USA) | 0.276 |
| 6. | Ciel et Espace (FRA) | 0.212 |
| 7. | Astronomia (ITA) | 0.165 |
| 8. | Astronomy Now (GBR) | 0.153 |
| 9. | Nuovo Orione (ITA) | 0.124 |
| 10. | Astronomisk Tidskrift (SWE) | 0.112 |
| Rank | Journal | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Sky & Telescope (USA) | 0.986 |
| 2. | Astronomy (USA) | 0.614 |
| 3. | Tribuna/Astronomía (ESP) | 0.243 |
| 4. | Sky & Space (AUS) | 0.186 |
Sky & Telescope not only leads dramatically the pack, but its score is very close to the maximum in each sample, which means that it appears at the first place in almost each answer.
Astronomy follows significantly behind, as well as Mercury. In Europe, those two magazines are preceded by the traditional NPAMs in French and German, while Mercury is not among the four top NPAMs in the `RoW' sample.
For the `RoW' sample, it is interesting to note that the two NPAMs appearing in third and fourth places do not appear in the other lists. We might also have there an indication of the increasing role of Spanish astronomy-wise world-wide.
Among the French NPAMs, note that L'Astronomie (traditionally involving professional astronomers and with the longest history) ranks consistently better than Ciel et Espace that has however a much larger circulation (cf. Table 5). Ciel et Espace is not mentioned by any US library.
In the `Europe' sample, there is naturally a significant spreading over a wide range of national magazines published in national languages. Most of them however are not listed among the top NPAMs of the list.
| Periodical (alphabetical sequence) |
Foundation Year |
Circulation (as listed in StarWorlds) |
|---|---|---|
| AAVSO Publications (USA) | 1911 (*) | n/a |
| Astronomia (ITA) | n/a | 50,000 |
| Astronomisk Tidskrift (SWE) (**) | 2000 | 1,700 |
| Astronomy (USA) | 1980 | 172,000 |
| Astronomy & Geophysics (GBR) | 1959 | 3,500 |
| Astronomy Now (GBR) | 1987 | n/a |
| Ciel et Espace (FRA) | 1970 | 80,000 |
| Griffith Observer (USA) | 1937 | n/a |
| L'Astronomie (FRA) | 1882 | 6,000 |
| Mercury (USA) | 1971 | 5,000 |
| Nuovo Orione (ITA) | n/a | n/a |
| Sky & Space (AUS) | 1988 | n/a |
| Sky & Telescope (USA) | 1941 | 125,000 |
| Spaceflight (GBR) | 1956 | n/a |
| StarDate (USA) | n/a | n/a |
| Sterne und Weltraum (GER) | 1962 | 40,000 |
| Tribuna/Astronomía (ESP) | 1985 | 8,500 |
(*) Foundation year of the association.
(**) Successor to the Scandinavian Astronomisk Tidsskrift founded in
1969 (note the difference in number of "s" in the spelling).
5. Penetration of Foreign Magazines
This was estimated by calculating the percentage of magazines listed under the third point of the survey compare to the total number of magazines listed for the corresponding sample. The results (percentage of NPAMs published outside the respective countries of the libraries receiving them) are given in Table 6.
| Sample | Percentage |
|---|---|
| USA | 23.6 % |
| Europe | 61.7 % |
| RoW | 67.9 % |
About one fourth of the NPAMs on the shelves of the libraries from the `USA' sample are published abroad. That percentage is more than double for the libraries of the `Europe' and `RoW' samples.
6. Penetration of Magazines in Different Languages
This was estimated by calculating the percentage of magazines listed under the fourth point of the survey compare to the total number of magazines listed for the corresponding sample. The results (percentage of NPAMs published in a language different from the official language of the respective countries of the libraries receiving them) are given in Table 7.
| Sample | Percentage |
|---|---|
| USA | 16.7 % |
| Europe | 56.7 % |
| RoW | 50.0 % |
About one sixth of the NPAMs on the shelves of the libraries from the `USA' sample are published in a foreign language. In the libraries of the `Europe' and `RoW' samples, about half of the NPAMs are published in a foreign language.
7. Final Comments
The results presented here are valid for the samples at hand. Although we believe that the main results and trends are genuinely representative, exaggerated generalizations should be avoided.
The overall success of Sky & Telescope was somehow expected in view of the high professionalism of its editorial team over so many years: quality of authors, validated information, virtually inexisting typos, no concession to sensationalism, etc., not to forget the continual improvement of the iconography and of the graphical layout.
Newcomers in the NPAM landscape should be patient for penetrating professional astronomy libraries. The current economic situation of a number of these -- budget stagnation or de facto reduction with many subscription fees on the way up, not to forget the recent inclusion of the electronic versions of professional journals -- is not favorable to starting new subscriptions. Librarians are also traditionally reluctant to close on-going subscriptions in favor of new magazines.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Astrolib moderators for publishing the survey, to the individual librarians who returned the questionnaires and to the magazines editors who provided some of the elements of Table 5.
(February 2001)