Back in the days before the Internet, how did authors obtain copies of journal articles if they did not hold a subscription to the journal? One common way to request a copy of an article was to send the corresponding author of the article a postcard or a letter requesting a reprint of the article. Reprints are bulk reproductions of individual articles provided by the publisher for the authors to distribute for teaching or research purposes. The practice of requesting a reprint started as a professional courtesy within the scholarly community and was widespread by the 1920s (Lewis RK. Responses to Reprint Requests. J Med Educ. 1972 Oct;47(10):827-9).
Some postcards from our archival collection include a reprint request to Dr. Edmund V. Cowdry for his 1940 work in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology.
Reprint request, Box 51, Folder 55, E. V. Cowdry Papers, Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington University School of Medicine.
Another reprint request using a stock postcard for Dr. Cowdry was from Western Reserve University in 1955.
Reprint request, Box 72, Folder 24, E. V. Cowdry Papers, Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington University School of Medicine.
Many reprint requests included a preprinted label for the corresponding author to affix to the envelope to send a reprint to the requester as noted in this example from 1972.
Reprint request, Box 2, Folder 49, Valentina Suntzeff Papers, Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington University School of Medicine.
Reprint requests were also noted on letters such as the example from 1941.
Letter, A.E. Maumenee to E.V. Cowdry, January 17, 1941, Box 51, Folder 55, E. V. Cowdry Papers, Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington University School of Medicine.
Copies of presentations or talks were also frequently requested as noted in this letter to Dr. Mildred Trotter for her talk given at Cambridge in December 1923.
Letter, E.L. Malone to M. Trotter, January 22, 1923, Box 3, Folder 33, Mildred Trotter Papers, Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington University School of Medicine.
