REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 55 



It was through the influence of the Royal Society that the cata- 

 logue was begun, and it stood financial sponsor for the enterprise 

 from the beginning. Each country taking part in the work bore 

 the total cost of indexing and classifying its own publications. This 

 cost was met, as a rule, by direct governmental grant. The United 

 States was represented through the Smithsonian Institution, an 

 appropriation being made each year by Congress for the mainte- 

 nance of the Bureau. The Central Bureau in London bore the 

 expense of editing and publishing the data prepared by the regional 

 bureaus and depended for its support entirely on funds received 

 from subscribers to the work. 



The aim of the International Catalogue was not only to cite the 

 titles of scientific papers published since 1901, but briefly to supply 

 an analytical digest of the subject contents of each paper. Tliis 

 was successfully accomplished in the following manner: To each one 

 of the sciences was assigned one of the letters of the alphabet, and 

 to each of the subheadings in these sciences was assigned a number. 

 In classifying the subject contents of a paper or book, instead of 

 writing an abstract, a letter and number referring to the classifica- 

 tion schedules were added to the citation for each important subject 

 treated, thus not only analyzing but classifying the author's work. 

 The printed volumes were arranged first as author catalogues and 

 second as subject catalogues. In the subject catalogues the classi- 

 fied references were assembled and grouped under each of the common 

 heads to which they appertained, and furnished a ready means of 

 learning at a glance all that had been written on a given subject of 

 scientific investigation. 



The International Catalogue of Scientific Literature was more than 

 an index; it was a condensed digest of the world's scientific literature. 



No such bibliographical service exists or ever existed until the 

 International Catalogue appeared, and when it is realized that the 

 most expensive part of the undertaking was furnished free through the 

 classified index references supplied by the 30 or more regional bureaus, 

 it is apparent that no private enterprise could hope to produce such 

 a catalogue. 



Revolutionizing advances in many of the arts, industries, and trades 

 are often made by means of scientific research, and what today 

 appears to be an abstract investigation in pure science tomorrow 

 becomes a stepping stone to some epoch-iuaking invention, which 

 either entirely changes an old or establishes a new trade or industry. 

 Hence a knowledge of the world's scientific literature is not a luxury 

 but a necessity. 



Today the field is only partially covered by other publications, 

 which, when assembled, are bulky, expensive, lack uniformity in 

 methods of reference, and in the aggregate leave many branches of 



