io4 The Zeeuwsch Genootschap and the Formation of its Correspondence Network
effectiveness of an actor within the network to spread information to other ele
ments.47 The larger the Closeness Centrality is, the better the ability of the actor to
spread around information within the network.48
The main focus of this paper is correspondence, being the leading method
of communication in the 18th century. Not only was correspondence the fast
est means of communication, but it also allowed an academy to keep in touch
with members throughout Europe and beyond, thereby encouraging a more par
ticipatory science. Correspondence grew in importance and quantity in the late
17th century and the 18th century. Lindsay O'Neill attributes this increase to the
increase of institutional correspondence.49 Academies institutionalised scholarly
correspondence, which brought stability to correspondence networks. Before this,
there was a reliance on individual connections which were often mobile and less
stable.50 Additionally, institutional correspondence indirectly linked the members
and directors to each other through the academy, which allowed them to broaden
their own affiliations.51 Thus, academies created a constant centre, which was not
only easy to contact but was also coordinated by an official secretary.52 Both An
drea Rusnock and Lindsay O'Neill argue that the functioning of a correspondence
network was heavily dependent on the secretary, who had the duty to archive and
respond to letters.53 The concept of David Kronick's 'gatekeeper' can be applied to
the secretaries of academies, as they played an essential part in the dissemination
of information for the academy.54
Networking in relation to the creation of knowledge can be analysed through
Bruno Latour's concept of 'acting at a distance' which enables institutions to act
47 Grandjean Jacomy Translating Networks, 10; Kazuya Okamoto, Chen Wei Li Xi-
ang-Yang, Ranking of Closeness Centrality for Large-Scale Social Networks. In: Franco P. Pre-
parata, Xiaodong Wu, and Jianping Yin (eds), Frontiers in Algorithmics. Berlin: Springer Berlin
Heidelberg, 2008, 187.
48 Okamoto, Wei Xiang-Yang, Ranking of Closeness Centrality, 187.
49 Lindsay O'Neill, The Opened Letter. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015, 141.
50 O'Neill, Opened Letter, 161.
51 Katherine Faust, Using Correspondence Analysis for Joint Displays of Affiliation Networks.
In: Peter J. Carrington, John Scott and Stanley Wasserman (eds), Models and Methods in Social
Network Analysis. Cambridge University Press, 2005, 119-120.
52 O'Neill, The Opened Letter, 161.
53 Andrea Rusnock, Correspondence Networks and the Royal Society, 1700-1750. In: The British
Journal for the History of Science 32, no. 2 (1999), 157.
54 David A. Kronick, A Commerce of Letters: Networks and 'Invisible Colleges' in Seventeenth-
and Eighteenth-Century Europe. In: The Library Quartely: Information, Community, Policy 71,
no. 1 (2001), 32.
