new publisher, Prometheus, the book remained to benjudged on its merits or demerits and not on admittedlynshaky ethical behavior in search of publication. In thisninstance, the “truth” of the manuscript was not in question;nrather the “morality” of publishing strategies by a youngnauthor was central.nIn each case, these are books with a “serious” purpose ornmessage, but published as “trade” rather than “scholarly”nworks. This is in itself an indicahon that the problem ofntruth in publishing, with rare exceptions, is most frequentlynfound in big publishing houses that have comprehensivenlists. Books published as fiction are prima facie exempt fromn”truth-telling” (except when such tides get too close tonempirical reality), and books published as pure scholarshipnare subject to a severe or vigorous review process thatnscreens out works of serious deficiency.nScholarly publishing has traveled a long way from servingnas a printer to scholars in Renaissance culture to functioningnas gatekeeper of truth in science and humanities.nIndeed, at this time, there is scarcely a tenure decisionnundertaken at a major university that fails to take intonaccount the publishing history of the individual undernconsideration. In not a few instances, the scholarly pressnprovides the essential bona fides in the form of refereenreports that may not determine the truth and falsity of anscholar’s work, but certainly determines whether the scholarnshall survive or perish in a given university. Given thisnconsiderable shift in obligation from academic departmentnto editorial department, the world of scholarly communicationnhas tended to err on the side of severity and caution.nLinkages between universities and their presses havencome full cycle. What started out as university support fornIn the forthcoming issue of Chronicles:nSingers of Talesn”Literature is not like music; it isn’t for the young; therenare not prodigies in writing. The knowledge or experiencena writer seeks to transmit is social or sentimental; it takesntime, it can take much of a man’s life, to process thatnexperience to understand what he has been through; andnit takes great care and tact, then, for the nature of thenexperience not to be lost, not to be diluted by the wrongnforms. The other man’s forms served the other man’snthoughts.”n20 / CHRONICLESn—from “Some Thoughts on Being a Writer”nALSOnby V.S. NaipaulnFrederick Turner rescues story from historynFred Chappell entertains a visionary company ofnfantasy writersnLeon Steinmetz introduces fiction into Chroniclesnwith “A Child’s Joke”nnnscholarly publications has reached a point at which thenquality of the university press attachment comes to definenthe worth of the university as such. Charges of slipshodnrefereeing, ideological bias, or poor management nownreflect on the status of the university as a whole. In such ancontext, the issue of maintaining standards of truth is akinnto beating a straw man to death. These concerns fornaccuracy are built into the socialization process of scholarlyncommunication. As a result, the real wonder is less thenoccasional fraudulent work that slips through the net thannthe rarity of such an event. Controversies concerningnauthenticity of historical documentation or laboratory experimentationnare so rare that they cause newspaper headlinesnand stirrings among university managements. In suchna climate of opinion, the emphasis on an occasionalnmistaken publishing judgment in releasing an unsoundnwork must be seen as a minor issue in the world of scholarlyncommunication.nAiming for the goal of truth in what is published isncertainly no less compelling in commercial or trade publishingnthan in scholarly communications. The problem isnthat possibilities for deceit are simply greater in tradenpublishing, not so much because of the greed of one kind ofnpublisher and the altruism of the other, or because onenemploys lower editorial standards and does not have itsnbooks professionally reviewed. Scholarly communication isnsimply different, more intimate, in its nature. Individualsndoing research are well-known to each other, publishingnparameters are clearly established, and professional constraintsnor claims are far easier to maintain than is allowednfor in trade publishing.nGatekeeping issues about truth, as opposed to merit,nmust be tempered by concerns about censorship. In the casenof presumably serious works published in a commercialnmanner, the question of accuracy has often been morenproblematic, even as it becomes less important. JamesnWatson’s The Double Helix may not be an absolutelynaccurate description of the priorities in the discovery of thenstructure of DNA. Immanual Velikovsky’s Worlds of Collisionnmay be nonsense or an apt, albeit speculative, recountingnof how our planetary system was formed. Resolvingnthese questions is not the publisher’s responsibility. In thencase of the commercial publication of books by individualsnwhose reputation rests on their scholarly achievements, thenconcerns and the responsibility still belong primarily to thenscientific community. That community has ample accessnto publishers, commercial and scholarly, to make known itsnobjections after publication. Martin Gardner in Fads andnFallacies in the Name of Science has made a decent livingnexposing fraud and chicanery in scientific writing. In thenworld of politics, where the content of truth is filterednthrough a series of ideological strainers, it may be dangerousnto insist on canons of pure truth. It is both simpler and morenefficient that the public is made aware of possible biases andnsentiments through the postpublication reviewing processnthan a denial to channels of communications in the namenof truths—often littie more than ideological biases orndictatorial wills.nThere are a variety of techniques employed by publishersnin both trade and scholarly activities to reduce the probabilitynof issuing fraudulent or plagiarized materials. Theyn