Multi-Science Publishing Co Ltd was established in 1961. In its earliest years it published only abstracts journals. Over the years the emphasis has changed to include primary journals and now it is developing a book publishing programme too. Always, the company has tended to concentrate its publishing interests around energy, acoustics and engineering disciplines, and has seen the world's universities (and like organisations) as its core market.
Multi-Science prides itself on starting journals that fill gaps in the scientific literature, and are responses to technological developments that call new disciplines into existence. In that way it achieves a uniqueness for its journals, they are not 'yet another' journal on any given topic. Thus, while some other journals do publish papers on acoustics within buildings, for example, only Building Acoustics is devoted to that topic, offering a core of specialisation for researchers. Of course, all Multi-Science's primary journals are fully refereed; the fact that distinguished editors and editorial boards lend their names and their time to the journals is one way of understanding the esteem in which they are held in certain quarters.
Multi-Science believes in the easy and affordable flow of information among scholars, and that publishers are there to facilitate that process, rather than maximise profits. To that end, Multi-Science had always offered its printed journals to the academic community at a comparatively low price. Now, technological opportunities are presenting themselves which mean that all of Multi-Science's content can be easily afforded by any institution, anywhere in the world. This is a goal which the company's directors prize highly - to let learning be wide-spread - and, once again, it is attainable only by a private company, not by one which has outside shareholders, who are always demanding more and more profit!
The company was founded in 1961 by Bernard Hughes, and it presently run by his son, William. It is a member of the Association of Society and Learned Publishers; of the International Society of Scientific Technical and Medical Publishers; it participates in the content-linking scheme, Crossref.