one of its objectives facilitating the handling of information, may be subject to having its own Code's 

 description (i. e. , the Key) criticized as being abstruse because of its concern with detail. A more 

 careful examination will reveal that the bulk of the Key is made of basic explanations, to which the 

 coder need seldom return once the general coding pattern is well in mind, and explanations for special 

 and sometimes rare coding problems, to which the coder will turn when a problem is encountered. 



One observation which may prove a common one has been made, that too little has been assumed 

 In the text of the Key and that much explanation has been made that is unnecessary and even unflattering 

 to the chemical or biological specialist. The CBCC conviction that this assumption is a serious error 

 Is based on experience with persons who have proved talented as coders and who have considerable 

 erudition in one or another special field of biology and chemistry. They do not all know, nor do any 

 pretend familiarity with, all biology and chemistry met with in chemical-biological tests. Furthermore, 

 none of them had, prior to their CBCC association, experience in transforming these facts to a coded 

 state. It is unrealistic to make the assumptions that all biologists are necessarily trained in all fields 

 of biology and chemistry or that they remember all aspects of the field in which they have concentrated 

 their study. A professional taxonomist should not assume the taxonomy of insects, for example, to be 

 well known by each pharmacologist. The pharmacologist should not expect antagonism and its measure- 

 ment to be well known to the taxonomist. 



Neither is it realistic to assume that these scientifically trained persons will all find easy the 

 translation of biological data into code, even if the data are completely understood. It can not even 

 be assumed that everyone assigned as a coder to a coding project is necessarily to be trained in the 

 biological sciences. Thus, the persons for whom the Key is intended to be a reference are highly 

 varied in their training. 



However, the Key Is not actually written nor intended for the biologically untrained person. It 

 is intended as a coding manual for persons untrained in coding, whether they are biologists, chemists, 

 or otherwise. There must be some middle ground in presenting the explanation for coding and the 

 present approach is to assume that principally biologists are being addressed, but emphatically 

 biologists of all descriptions: pathologists, plant physiologists, horticulturists, animal taxonomists, 

 bacteriologists, anatomists, pharmacologists, biology librarians, etc. 



Coding can be reduced to a simple procedure in some cases, but even the most simple coding 

 demands establishing conventions which must be adhered to and the conventions must be logical. 

 Furthermore, if the coder is trained as a scientist, it is probable that he has the curiosity to want to 

 understand the reasoning behind the coding procedures. The reasons for a given procedure must be 

 understood not only for establishing other procedures the character of which must depend on already 

 existing procedures, but for intelligent retrieval of information coded by those procedures. 



It is difficult for persons who have not contended with coding problems to appreciate what 

 these facts mean and how invaluable are the details explaining coding conventions that must be adhered 

 to. To entertain the opinion that the explanatory details are superfluous can only mean a lack of 

 appreciation of the enormous amount of time and patience (and money) wasted under circumstances in 

 which there exists no single reference to those details that are so easily forgotten or become confused. 



The composition of this Key has as its objective the provision of a reference for coding pro- 

 cedures. If a more brief Key is more practical for ordinary use in coding chemical-biological infor- 

 mation, by all means it should be devised by the adapter, and this can be done from the information 

 in the present Key. 



Considerations in Publishing the Details of the 

 Biology Code and Key 



Certain questions were posed by the circumstances of the Biology Code and Key being published 

 only after the disruption of all activities of the Center. No serious doubts have been held about 

 the basic matter, that the Center's experience in biology coding should be made available by publication 

 of the Biology Code, Including a record of the procedures used by the Center for handling of biological 

 information. However, at the time the task was begun for preparing the publication, two indeterminate 

 factors made difficult certain decisions about the form in which the Code should be published. 



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