Author: ab4410

The final chapter

The past month seems to have flown by. When Friday rolled around, I couldn’t believe that I’d already spent 4 weeks working at the Royal Society. I guess that’s a good sign though. It’s been such a great experience and certainly something I’d recommend to all PhD students. It can be so useful to have something lift you out of the PhD bubble for a little while…

Thinking about the internship overall, I feel like I’ve managed to get a lot out of the placement given it was relatively short. I really benefited from having the mixture of helping out on the typical day-to-day editorial tasks and working on some of my own mini projects (for the RS anniversary issue and Neuroscience marketing strategy). This not only made for a varied and interesting experience but also ensured that I got a good insight into the world of academic publishing.  I’m really glad I had the opportunity to talk to people from other departments within the Royal Society as well, as it opened up my eyes to the different options available for graduates within the non-commercial sector that still have some relation to science. It was great to find out more about the amazing work of the organization; I really respect how committed they are to supporting scientists and ensuring that science plays a bigger cultural role within society so it felt really special to be a part of it. Even if it was only for a month.

Importantly I managed to get in another visit to the archive in my final couple of days and enjoyed more geeky time with some old letters/manuscripts. But I have to say that the main highlight of my last week was the farewell banana bread that one of the lovely ladies from the editorial team made for my last day. YUM.
And so back to the reality of PhD life…oh joy. Hmmm, maybe my supervisor will surprise me with a ‘welcome back’ cake tomorrow??

 

 

Death masks and Franklin’s guide on how to be struck by lightning

Apparently death masks were all the rage in the past…especially for highly important people like Isaac Newton. The one that I saw last week was taken as a guide for the artist who had been commissioned to make Newton’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. This wasn’t the only Newton goodie (if you can call it that!) on display when I was taken on a tour of the Royal Society’s Library and Archive last week. There was also a lock of his hair, the original manuscript of Principia, a diary detailing the first recorded version of the famous apple story and even a piece of bark from that fateful apple tree. They even let me touch it all! Crazy people.


Newton goodies


The death mask


Original manuscript of Principia (mostly written by Newton’s clerk BUT features amendments by the man himself)

Anyway, the Newton memorabilia was just the start of the excitement. I was shown various other cool things like the ballots for the election of Charles Darwin into the Fellowship, letters written by William Herschel and Benjamin Franklin (…not to each other) and the minutes of the first ever meeting of the Royal Society.


Franklin’s letter thanking the RS for awarding him the Copley medal.


Minutes of the first ever RS meeting from 1660.

And then in the depths of the climate controlled stores I got to see the very first editions of the PhilTrans journal. These literally used to be made up from all of the separate hand written letters from each of the submitting scientists, bound together into a single book. Something I found really striking was that the figures were also all hand-drawn and were beautiful with exquisite detail. Enlightment era scientists had some serious skillzzzz.

These early journal submissions were actually pretty topical for me because as part of my internship I’m helping to put together a list of key publications from the journal for the 350th anniversary celebration. The publishing division is planning to bring out a special issue in 2015 featuring the most significant/interesting of these articles alongside their original manuscripts. It’s been a great opportunity for me to embrace my (not so inner) geek. It’s pretty funny reading through some of the early contributions. They range from the bizarre like the one describing «An Account of a Monstrous Birth» to the DIY instructions by Franklin recommending how best to charge a metal rod with lightning whilst holding it and standing in a doorway during a thunderstorm.


Another item I spotted in the archive stores…the archivist had no idea what it was. Any guesses?

Earning my publishing stripes and golden maces

With the second week of the internship came that feeling of settled-ness where you enter the comfort zone of knowing what you’re doing and is expected of you. Although there’s still plenty of variety in the tasks that I’m assigned so there’s no time to get complacent or procrastinate really! Some new tasks I’ve been helping with include making promotional flyers for forthcoming editions of the journal.  I also worked with another of the editors in the department to select reviewers for articles submitted to Interfac,e a more conventionally structured research journal published by the RS. It was really interesting finding out some of the different approaches taken for this journal, compared to TransB. It’s great to get this experience, as one of the major draws of the Charity Insights placement for me was to discover as much as possible about the world/process of academic publishing.

There was further development in my responsibilities as I started the first of my special mini projects. For it, I’m helping to develop the marketing strategy for TransB. To this effect, I’ve started to put together a marketing plan/report for the forthcoming Neuroscience and Cognition theme issues. There’s a nice batch of really interesting editions coming out over the next couple of months so I’m trying to think of more inventive ways to get them the attention they deserve! (Trying not to disappoint with my «insider» knowledge of the neuroscience field (!!)…ahem) It’s fun coming up with new ideas, especially trying to introduce more social media marketing. One of the benefits of coming into a relatively small publishing department (rather than going through an internship with a large commercial publisher) is how closely the editorial/production and marketing sections work together. Their offices are next door and throughout the day, there is constant interaction and collaboration between the departments. I’ll get a chance to discuss some of the ideas I’ve come up with so far in a meeting tomorrow with the marketing coordinator of the publishing division.

Another aspect of the past week which I’ve really enjoyed was meeting representatives of some of the other departments within the Royal Society. The ones I was most interested in finding out about were the Science Policy and Science Communication sections. These are both really important directions for RS and I guess their overall objective is quite similar: disseminating science to a wider audience whether they’re acting to make science more accessible for politicians or the general public,. Emma from Science Policy took me through  some of the great work she’s involved in which includes translating science into reports for both local and international government bodies in order to implement more evidence-guided policies. She’s worked on some really important issues such as climate change, UN development goals, etc and the job seems to strike a nice balance between keeping up to date with exciting developments in science and using them to drive change. On the other hand, Rose from Science Communication talked how work in her department is more concerned with communicating research to the general public. The RS organises loads of great events such as public lectures and the annual summer science exhibition throughout the year, as well as bringing out regular podcasts and video interviews with some of their fellows.

If you’ve managed to make it to the end of this week’s blog, congratulations! As a reward here’s the picture of the golden mace promised by the title. It was a gift from Charles II to the RS.

Ooooooh shiny.

 

 

Week One at Royal Society Publishing

This week I started my Charity Insights internship at the publishing office of Royal Society. I’m sure that most of you will have at least heard of the Royal Society (if not, here’s the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society for a quick blurb) It’s the oldest scientific academy still in existence and I ended up there because I’m interested in the work they do in communicating science and emphasizing the cultural role that science has to play in society.  Oh and because I wanted to get a taste of academic publishing and their publishing division just happen to bring out some great journals! The editor that I’m working with is in charge of Philosophical Transactions B, which brings out theme issues, so it’s more like a review publication. It’s actually the first scientific journal that was ever published. I think that’s pretty cool…but that might just be me.

Another perk of working at the Royal Society is that they’re based in a beautiful location just behind the Mall and Regents Park:

I know Imperial’s campus has a pretty great location, but that’s the view from the toilets at RS.

 

Don’t judge me for taking photos from the toilets…or for their terrible quality…trust me, the view is GOOD.
I’ve started by taking over some of the junior editorial coordinator tasks for the journal: like checking over author submissions before they’re sent over to production and updating the website with information about the latest issues. I have to say, having access to the proofs of papers by some big names before they’re published (ie still under embargo!) feels pretty special. The editorial team is a small group and everyone’s really friendly, all in all it’s a really welcoming environment to have entered into.
So my feelings about the experience as the first week has drawn to an end are pretty positive! Hopefully it isn’t just the enthusiasm of a rookie…