Scientific publisher Springer is celebrating its 175th company anniversary. The foundations for today's company were laid on May 10, 1842 when Julius Springer, at the age of 25, opened his bookstore and publishing house in Berlin. His aim was to bring current and accurate scientific findings to the wider public. The publishing house remained a family business for four generations. Now Springer is an international scientific publisher with over 50 locations worldwide, and it belongs to the publishing group Springer Nature.
Initially, the "Julius Springer Publishing House" chiefly published political caricatures and treatises reflecting the spirit of Germany's Vormärz period, but it also increasingly specialized in literature from the natural sciences and engineering. In 1904, the publishing house began to expand its publications in the field of medicine. Among the numerous renowned Springer authors are names such as Werner von Siemens, Rudolf Diesel, Albert Einstein, Paul Ehrlich, Emil Fischer and Ferdinand Graf Zeppelin.
After the Second World War, Ferdinand Springer founded a further office for medical and natural science publishing in Heidelberg. In the 1960s Springer began to expand internationally. In 1964, the first office was opened in the USA, in the Flatiron Building in New York. Further offices were opened in London (1973), in Tokyo (1983), in Paris (1985) and in Hong Kong (1986).
Springer revolutionised the publishing business in the 1990s with its innovative ideas and concepts. In the summer of 1996, it set another milestone in the long company history and steered the course for the future. As one of the pioneers of digitalization, Springer presented the online platform LINK (today SpringerLink) which allows scientific publications to be purchased and read online.
The characteristic company logo remains the knight chess piece, which was chosen by the Springer family in 1881. The logo symbolizes the company founder's (Julius Springer and his sons) passion for chess. Today, Springer publications are clearly marked with this logo as the company's brand.
Springer has been part of the publishing group Springer Nature since 2015. Worldwide, Springer Nature has around 13,000 employees and a turnover of 1,624.7 million Euro in 2016. Springer publishes annually around 12,000 new books and around 3000 academic journals. Including the Springer Book Archives, over 110,000 titles dating back to the 19th century are available on SpringerLink.
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