MEMORANDUM FOR(Sanitized)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00509R000100020003-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 14, 2004
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 1, 1979
• Content Type: MF

T '"!~P,,"Ih r Release 2004/11/ 4HGT1A-RDP90-00509R000100020l
"This material has application to FUTURE
open source literature and future processing
problems. Garfield is with ISI. I am currently
monitoring a contract with ISI on open source
processing. Lederberg, a Nobel Prize Winner,
is currently a member of the DCI's STAP
(Sci. & Tech. Adv. Panel)"
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C
575 M 101 EUSE DTIOISIOUS
 q 4
EUGENE GARFIELD
INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION("
Alternative Forms of Scientific P sblishingt
Some time ago, I expressed some
)pinions on the future of the scientific
ournal. I The primary point I made was
hat the medium in which scientific arti-
;les appeared might change, but the
;ontents would be essentially the same.
Much has been said in recent years
about the "paperless revolution."2.3,4
3ut Joshua Lederberg, president of .
Iockefeller University, seems to have
ynthesized it all in a paper which I ex-
)ect will have wide impacts While
;ommunications and information scien-
ists have grasped the technical signifi_
ance of the electronic publishing revo-
ution, Lederberg, as an accomplished
xser, appreciates the impact a little
pore than most of us. Hence the title,
Digital Communications on the Con-
tuct of Science: The New Literacy.'
Lederberg wrote his paper at the invi-
ation of the IEEE for a special issue of
heir Proceedings devoted to packet
ommunications. Lederberg suggests
hat electronic communications will not
mly speed up scientific information ex-
:hange, but the new medium will also
Iffect the quality of the messages con-
'eyed.
Lederberg's EUGRAM system in-
?olves a network of interconnected
.omputers. The individual scientist pre-
Keeping Up With
The Evolving System of
Scientific communication
pares a scientific communication on a
text-editing display terminal, Once the
paper enters the system, it is immediate-
ly retrievable by other scientists with
terminals. Instant refereeing of papers is
possible because you can send your
EUGRAM to selected colleagues or ref-
erees. This combines the features of an
electronic mail system with Selective
'Dissemination of Information (SDI).
The system seems to resolve some
problems associated with today's print-
ed journal. These problems include the
spiraling cost of printing and the ever-
increasing number of scientific papers
vying for limited space. Presumably, the
electronic system will cost less than
print journals, and we can assume that
eventually more papers could be stored
electronically than can now be pub-
lished economically. Since all papers
entered into the system would be re-
trievable by any scientist, scientific pa-
pers in the future might receive more in-
terdisciplinary exposure than. they do
today.
It is tempting to contemplate in detail
what Dr. Lederberg says. I suggest that
the interested reader write for a reprint,
especially since the paper was published
.in a journal that is, not immediately ac-
cessible to most of you.
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:t1 R RE NT.',CONTEN.TS3',
*79 by, IS1,9 -
 The main point of my essay is to de- However, most of these are not In-
ApprovetbFocvRelease t 34MVS4 cIfCl -It~RBQ (@r5r?B~dJi ~t~IQ ~QI a~ .
journals which typify the rapidly Chang- original publication.
ine scene in the evolution of the jour- The obvious advantage of microform
nal. is simply that more papers can be pub-
At ISIS we are constantly evaluating lished in less space and at less cost.
journals. It is a strenuous but essential However, microform journals have not
task. It is especially challenging because gained wide acceptance within the sci-
in spite of our comprehensive coverage, entific community. "The advantages [of
we must be selective. During the past six microforma] all appear to be for librar-
months alone, we've evaluated and ree- ies," says L.A. Page, treasurer of the
valuated more than 1,000 journals, The Wildlife Disease Association and past,
result of all this work is only partially editor of Wildlife Disease. In contrast,
reflected in "journal coverage changes." "most authors want to have their work
All this activity reflects one of the ma- in readily readable form:"? You simply
jor quantitative consequences of big sci- cannot browse through microform as
ence. Science is big not only because you can with printed journals. More-
there are large projects which produce over, the reproduction quality of micro-
papers with a dozen authors. Science is form readers has not been very good,
big because it is omnipresent, interna- though it is improving.
tional, and still growing. It is inevitable It remains to be seen whether micro-
that new journals proliferate like big sci- fiche in particular will become a major
ence. But there is also a need for new medium of scientific publication before,
kids of journals. Some satisfy the spe- during, or after the electronic revolu-
cial intellectual requirements of big sci- tion has arrived. One idea that seems to
ence. Others reflect the quantitative be catching on is the synoptic/micro-
needs. form journal. These journals only print
The latter category of need has led to synopses or summaries of scientific
alternative publication media such as papers. The full papers are published si-
microforms or miniprint, which reduce multaneously in a microfiche edition of
the amount of print space used in publi- the journal. This approach to journal
cations. The former category includes publishing is similar to an idea suggested
those journals that present scientific by Watson Davis as far back as 1933.8
knowledge in new editorial styles. He proposed that synoptic journals be
Since the electronic journal is still published by a central agency that
some years away, for the present, many would provide the full papers on de-
journal publishers are turning to alter- mand-just as reprint requests are han-
native media to cope with increasing dled now.
costs. Publication in microform is one A prime example of a synoptic jour-
option pursued by journal publishers for nal which appears to he a successful
some time now. The journals Wildlife experiment is the Journal of Chemical
Disease and International Microform Research, which was started in 1977.
Journal of Legal Medicine have pub- Under the aggressive leadership of Dr.
lished exclusively in microform since Helmut "Joe" Grunewald, this journal
the mid-19600) Today, many print- has been able to publish an average of
journals also publish a microform edi- 240 papers a year. The new journal
tion for libraries with limited space. caused some problems for us here at
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.0 1879 by tat*
 t4l~ueo~ytadp~>o~d~~~s~~0+~1 /o~ls~fl~~ee~9tl~
h ih jltfientific
ides only the key references cited.erentn teourna sysem o sc ie complete bibliography is only avail- communication.
4e in the niicrofarm or miniprint edi- One type of scientific literature has
m. Eventually, ISI and The Chemical been described by Senders as "fugitive"
3ciety, London, which publishes the literature.10 It includes papers of merit
urnal, worked out a solution. It is now that are not suited for core journals be-
>ssible for its to process all cited refer- cause of their length or because they re-
ces. Recently, the journals Studia port so-called negative results. The
)physica and Bulletin of the Geologi- American Psychological Association
Society of America switched to a (APA) is coping with the growth of fugi-
nilar format. As in the case of the tive literature through its quarterly
urnal of Chemical Research, the Catalog of Selected Documents in Psy-
inted summary sections do not con- chology. The Catalog publishes ab-
n all the references to the full articles. stracts of unpublished papers that
e are now working on arrangements would otherwise be lost to the scientific
rich, with the cooperation of these community. The APA offers reprints of
urnals, will allow us to pick up these the full articles to readers who request
st references. them. The cost of the reprint varies with
In a previous essay I discussed the use each article.
miniprint as a cost-cutting alternative Another experiment in scientific pub-
r journal publishers.` The Journal of lication is the International Research
emical Research publishes a mini- Communications System (IRCS) estab-
ant edition which it offers as an alter- lished in 1973 by David F. Horrobin,
live to microfiche. However, not all University of Montreal; John Paul
,blishers who have tried miniprint Eakins, of Imperial Chemical Indus-
re satisfied with the results. In the tries; and Michael S. Buckingham.. now
rly 1970s, the American Institute of managing director of IRCS. IRCS has
'ronautics and Astronautics consid- reduced the lag time in communication
yd publishing its journals in miniprint to four weeks from the submission date
d offered sample miniprint articles to of a manuscript until its publication, in-
readers. The Institute abandoned the elusive of refereeing by largely UK re-
,a, however, when a sizeable minority ferees. Research findings are published
the readership responded negatively as brief, 500-word notes.
the miniprint samples.ty Similarly, Each article in the IRCS system ap-
Canadian Aeronautics and Space pears in one or more of 32 print jour-
urnal used to print synopses in normal nals. Each journal or section covers a
pe size, but the full articles appeared different medical specialty. IRCS also
miniprint at the back of the journal. publishes three "key" journals, which
is practice was discontinued about six present those articles from the entire
ars ago. compendium considered most impor-
The journals discussed up to this tant by the editors. All of the articles
,int all use alternative media to cope published in the 32 sections appear in a
th the rising cost of publication. Some microfilm IRCS Medical Science Li-
urnals, however, are experimenting brarv Compendium.
th new ways of presenting scientific One of the major problems in gaining
+owledge. These experiments are at- acceptance with these new experiments
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1RRENT CONTENTSO
 \ppra~ ~ sef~fiU isUO4'if1Cl
-
f
b 40P1910 EN e9 f+ 6fe t1o
of such current awareness tools as the
Science Citation Index? (SCI?) and
Chemical Abstracts.tt Care is taken to
insure that the commentaries represent I
a sampling of opinion from scientists
throughout the world. Through open
peer commentary, the knowledge im-
parted by the target article becomes
more fully integrated into the entire
field of the behavioral and brain
sciences. This contrasts with the provin-
cialism of specialized journals. i
The commentaries or critiques pre-
sented in The Behavioral and Brain Sci-
ences are not short quips--they average
about 1,100 words. (Target articles av-
erage about 13,000 words.) Further-
more, the target author's response to
the collective critique averages about j
8,300 wordsl
Harnad'.s enthusiasm for The Behav-
ioral and Brain Sciences is infectious.
"Peer interaction is the real medium for
the self-corrective aspect of science,"
he writes.12 This belief is not unique,
but the new editorial style makes it a re-
ality. Indeed, most scientists are aware
of the large number of errors even in the
most prestigious joumals.5.13 The first
words I stated in print about the SCI
concerned the problem of corrections
of all kinds which remained buried in
the literature for lack of a means to
bring them together with the original er-
rors.' a
In the case of The Behavioral and
Brain Sciences, open peer commentary
does not replace the traditional referee-
ing procedure. On the contrary, papers
submitted to the journal are reviewed
by about eight anonymous referees.
Usually, three of the referees are ex-
perts in the field of the target article.
The other five are experts in related
com
to publish their best works as bee
munications or in microform. It be-
comes difficult for Current Contents?
.(C(5) to justify coverage until the
quality of the material is on a par with
the journals we now cover. This vicious
circle may only be broken by testing out
some of this material in CC.
The examples cited so far are journals
which attempt to solve the space prob-
lem. If science is democratic, then
everyone should "at least have a chance
to get in his or her 500 words! But this
does not deal with the fundamental in-
tellectual problem of science which fre-
quently pushes in the opposite direc-
tion. There ought to be a way to foster
more detailed discussion, especially
when a problem is of vital interest to
many people. A pioneering step in this
direction was taken by the journal Cur-
rent Anthropology in 1960. This journal
fosters a system of open peer commen-
tary. It anticipates in slower print form
the "instant" peer interaction of
Lederberg's EUGRAPHY.
The newest journal to use open peer
commentary is The Behavioral and
Brain Sciences, published by Cambridge
University Press. This journal is the
brain child of Stevan Harnad, formerly
of the Rutgers Medical School, who is
now the journal's full-time editor. Har-
nad consciously modeled The Behavior-
al and Brain Sciences after Current An-
thropology.
Each issue presents about four "tar-
get" articles. Each article is accompa-
nied by about 35 commentaries contri-
buted not only by members of the im-
mediate invisible college but also by
outside peers. Authors who have writ-
ten on subjects related to the target ar-
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 inter isciplinary interest an rote tgt ri-
ity..
The most noticeable drawback of-
.)pen peer commentary is the amount of
itne required for a submitted target ar-
icle to be published. After the article is
?eceived, it must be sent to referees.
Some rewriting is usually necessary after
this has been done. Next, commentaries
must be solicited and received. Then,
he target author must write his re--
:ponse. Until now, this process has tak-
tn up to a year to complete. Hamad ex
)ects the time to be reduced to eight
aonths once authors become more fa-
niliar with the journal's style.
ISI is now covering The Behavioral
and Brain - Sciences. The open peer
ommentary feature presented us with a
,'eat problem. How does one treat the
dostantentaries? Are they part of the tar-
t a t' le? If so what does one do with
0 ? r QA RMAR9020003-2
ies? Should we include the names of all
35 authors involved on the contents
page? In the end, we decided to treat
each commentary as an article in its
own right.
All of the innovations described
above are harbingers of significant
changes on the horizon. As the price of
paper and postage increases while the
cost of computer storage goes down. we
approach a critical point in the history
of science. How many journals survive
and for how long is an interesting prob-
lem for futurists to tackle. In the mean-
time we at ISI will continue to deal with
each new innovation with an open
mind. As you have seen, some innova-
tions can disrupt our system temporari-
ly, but we still encourage creative ex-
perimentation. o,sm,,,
REFERENCES
1. Garttcid E. Is there a future for the scientific journal? Sci. 'T'ech. News 29:42-4, 19,75-
2. Cawkell A E. The paperless revolution. Forces controlling the introduction of electronic
information systems. (Part 1) Wireless World 84(1511):38-42, 1978.
3. ................ The paperless revolution. Forces controlling the introduction of electronic
information systems. (Part 2) Wireless World 84(1512):69-74, 1978.
4. Lancaster F W. Toward paperless information systems.
New York: Academic Press, 1978. 192 p.
S. Lederberg I. Digital communications and the conduct of science: the new literacy.
Proc. IEEE 6600:1314-9, 1978.
I. Herman C M & Davis D E. Primary publication in microprint.
Bioscience l4(4):27-30, 1964.
7. Page 1. A. Telephone communication. 25 July 1979..
H. Davis W. Project for scientific publication and bibliography. (Bernal J 0.) The social
function of science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1967. p 449-55.
9. Garfield E. Miniprint: is it a practical way to cut publishing costs? Or it you can read this.
you can read miniprintl Current Contents (2):5-12, 9 January 1978.
s,). Senders I W, Anderson C M B & Hecht C D. Scientific publications systems: an analysis
of past, present and future methods of scientific communication.
Toronto: University of Toronto, 1975. 175 p.
I I. Harnad S. Telephone communication. 25 July 1979.
2, ............ Creative disagreement. Sciences 19(7):18-20, 1979.
3. Ingelflager F I. Peer review in biomedical publication. Amer. J. Med. 56:686-92, 1974.
4. Garfield E. Citation indexes for science. Science 122:108-i1. 1955.
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 Approved For Release 2004/11/04: CIA-RDP90-00509R00010002000
Digital Communications and the Con
Science: The New Literacy
JOSHUA LEDERBERG, SENIOR MEMBER, IEEE
Abstract-This essay is a personal perspective on the emergence of a
new form of cormuiti atlon, optimistically called the `EUGRAM'. This
form is based on the convergence of economical digital communications
with computer-aided facilities for file management, and protocols to
facilitate the interco-anection of users separated both in time and space.
The EUGRAM is contrasted with the telephone, with the latter's de-
mands on Instant availability and the subjugation of the user to an al-
most ulinterrtlptible stream of data. The EUGRAM is expected to
increase the thoughtfulness of communication, the return of literacy
in the efficient and precise use of language, and to enhance scientific
discourse in many other ways.
INTRODUCTION
C OMPUTER communication networks provide new tools
and opportunities for the scientific community to share
scarce computer-based resources- They permit computer based resources- They permit a new
form of informal communication between scientists and often
provide motivation and reward for timely sharing of research
results. In addition, corputer-based support to large distrib-
uted segments of a scientific community is made possible via
users and computers interconnected by computer controlled
networks.
Today the most signifiuanI and useful form of computer
communication is based on packet-switched technology which
has been reduced to practice in daily support of some portions
of the scientific community.
Two key elements of this technology base arc:
1) computer-based user-user message capability, i.e., elec-
tronic mail plus the computer-management of text data.
2) sharing in the development, refinement and use of large,
complex computer knowledge-based systems particular to a
segment of science, which would not otherwise be widely
available.
This essay is written from the perspective of an enthusiastic
user of packet-switched communications. The system itself is
here regarded as a black box that accomplishes efficient trans-
fer of digitally encoded information in near-real time among
terminals that interface both to human users and to computer-
manageable files, The economical integration of user, file,
processor, and distance-indifferent communication link is the
novel capability of what I shall call it FUGRAM system,
Manuscript received January 4, 1978, revised May 15, 1978. The
work an which the. essay is based was supported in part by the Bio-
technology Research Branch, Division of Research Resources, National
Institute of Health, Grants RR-00785 and RR-612-06, and by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Heuristic Programming
Project, directed by Prof. E. A. Feigenbaum.
The author was with Stanford University Medical School, Stanford,
CA. He is now President of the Rockefeller University, New York,
NY 10021.
EUGRAPIIY thus embraces not only electronic despatch of
mail but also a panoply of computer-augmented text-handling
tools and protocols. This account is informed by my expe-
rience over the last five years in the development of the
SUM1?.a-AIM community for research in artificial intelligence
related to biomedical science, which is more fully described
in Appendix I. However, it will be primarily concerned with
the expected impact of, and needs for, the elaboration of
EUGRAPIIY in the conduct of scientific research generally
over the next 25 years.
A. Conduct of Science: Computers and Communications
The claim of science to universal validity is supportable only
by virtue of a strenuous commitment to global communicy.
lion. In the spatial domain, the canon of publication insists
upon public awareness and criticism of avowedly new knowl-
edge. This enforces the reliability of empirical reports and
assembles them into common models of a real world. In the
temporal domain, the archiving and retrieval of information
sustains the discipline of novelty--assuring :hat we acknowl-
edge, so as to be able to extend, the boun,i;cries of `human',
i.e., universal knowledge.
The past twenty years have witnessed a growing self-
consciousness about the structure of scientific activity, im-
pelled in part by Malthusian concerns over the long term
implications of a geometric increase at 0.2` dB/yr: a ten-fold
expansion over the 40-year typical career of the scientist.
Much more has been written than impleme: ted about means
of helping scientists keep up with the "inform ation-explosion."
One must acknowledge the utility of recent introductions of
Iiterature-searching and alerting services, many of which
crucially depend on computer support and EUGRAM-like
corn munications. On the other hand, it will probably be the
cost-explosion of print media for scientific publications [ I 1
that proves to be a more immediately compelling motive for
fundamental reexamination of our methods of scientific docu-
mentation and communication. Designs for solving these
problems reviewed long since 121 - must take into account
that the media for communication also play a crucial role in
quality control in science. The filtering procedures of the
'refereed journal' support the selection both of worthwhile
reading, and of the workers whose established performance
entitles them to the privileges of academic positions and social
subsidy for their research.
Perhaps on account of these latter concerns, most of my
colleagues in biomedical research would be loath to adopt
many changes in the present system of print publication. In
practice, frequent personal encounters [31 facilitated by
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 LEDERBERG: DiO1IDpC t*>Ftar seqBOtO;