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Postcards from the past

Nature Chemistry volume 12, pages 4–6 (2020)Cite this article

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Michelle Francl considers the long-lost art of the reprint card and the debate that once raged about its use and misuse.

To be honest, I hadn’t thought about these cards in years. For the first half of my career, they were a regular part of my postal mail and then between one paper and the next they weren’t. I remembered straining to read the handwriting on some cards — who was Dr LoopAndSwirl? In the early stages of my career, when computational chemists were thin on the ground, these cards were encouraging reminders that my work was grounded in a larger chemical community, and that people beyond my field had enough interest in my work to pick up a postcard and pen and ask for a copy, incomprehensible signatures and all.

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Fig. 1: Reprint postcards.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, USA

    Michelle Francl

  2. Vatican Observatory, Vatican City, Vatican City State

    Michelle Francl

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  1. Michelle Francl
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Correspondence to Michelle Francl.

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Twitter: @MichelleFrancl

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Francl, M. Postcards from the past. Nat. Chem. 12, 4–6 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-019-0394-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-019-0394-7

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