Computer Periodicals i n Poland (History and Statistical Data)

Abstract

The Polish computer periodicals have a record of over forty years of history. Their beginning was marked by the publication of "Archiwum Automatyki i Telemechaniki" (1956), and first of all the periodical "Maszyny Matematyczne" (1965) known as "Informatyk" by its contemporaries. Until the end of 1982 there came into being 15 more periodicals (mainly professional and scientific journals). The year 1985, in which "Bajtek", the first generalreadership computer magazine was published, was a breakthrough in computer periodicals, which have started flourishing continually since then. The estimates indicate that until 1998 there appeared 151 computer periodicals in Poland, whose growth was stable. Since 1956 until mid-1989, 27 new titles emerged (on average one or two titles a year). The remaining 124 came into being only during the transformation period. In 1990 their number enlarged with other 14, and subsequently in 1991 - 7 new titles were created, 1992 - 13, 1993 - 17, 1994 - 11, 1995 - 12, 1996 - 13, 1997 - as many as 19, with the same number in the year 1998. Over 61% of all periodicals (93) are published in Warsaw, which can be attributed to the fact that major publishing houses in this professional area have their headquarters there; namely Lupus, LDG, CGS, Software and AVT, and previously Bajtek. The Polish capital is also the seat of all major scientific institutions, which publish up to 28 journals in the computer field. The subsequent positions in terms of the number of publications are taken by Wroclaw (20), Poznań (7), Cracow (6) and Bydgoszcz (4). The private sector has the highest publishing status with the production of approximately 73%, universities - 20%, PAN (Polish Academy of Sciences) - 5%, NOT (Chief Technical Organisation) - 2%. A tendency towards accumulation of titles by one institution is observable, which led to the emergence of genuine concerns: Lupus (10 periodicals), CGS (8), LDG and Bajtek (no longer existent) (6 each), Vogel and Software together with AVT (4 each), Angel and Silver Dark (3 each), ZPR, Recon, ProScript and Alfin ((2 each). These periodicals are grouped into two categories: popular magazines (56% of all titles), and specialised (44%). Among the latter, the scientific category (36) is most strongly represented, then the professional one (19), and the professional- promotional one (9). Popular magazines may be further subdivided into the categories of general-readership (39), specialised (13), information and advertising (11), and computer games (as many as 24). The most popular periodicals include such titles as "Chip" and "PC World Computer" (editions of 150 thousand issues), "Enter" (60), "PC Magazine" in Polish (40), "PC Shareware" (30), "//WWW" (43), "Internet" (25), or a dozen magazines for players. The leading scientific journals published by PAN are "Archives of Control Sciences" and "Archiwum Informatyki Teoretycznej i Stosowanej", as well as a dozen periodicals from other research centres. The professional magazine that should be mentioned is "Informatyka" and Polish editions of international journals like "Computerworld", "Software", "NetWorld", and a number of periodicals by big computer companies.