500 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1453 



routine commeroial analysis to theoretical 

 physical chemistry. The material would, of 

 course, be organized into sections according to 

 the judgment of the biologists and the section 

 or sections of interest could be a-s easily con- 

 sulted as in a special journal. This objection 

 resolves itself, I believe, into the relatively small 

 item of space occupied on the shelf; this may 

 perhaps be met by some plan of issuing parts 

 without involving a sacrifice of the fundament- 

 ally important principle of uniform support 

 by all members of the constituent societies of 

 the proposed Federation. 



(2) Duplication. Most of the duplication 

 existing in special abstracting joui'nals would 

 be done away with and the problem would nar- 

 row itself down to the necessary overlapping 

 with a few large abstracting journals in the 

 other major fields — chemistry, physics, etc. 

 Moreover, with such a widely distributed ab- 

 stract journal, research journals might well dis- 

 continue their abstract sections and either de- 

 vote such space to the publication of addition- 

 al research, or to criticism, or both; or effect a 

 reduction .in size, and consequently in cost. 



(3) Cross referencing. Though the ma- 

 terial be segregated into special sections, as 

 many as necessary, suggestive and pertinent 

 material from other sections could be conveni- 

 ently referred to by cross references, each sec- 

 tional editor having complete control over cross 

 references by having access to a complete dupli- 

 cate galley proof. (In the special journals 

 this can be done only by duplicating in large 

 measure the abstracts appearing in other spec- 

 ialized journals.) This cross-referencing would 

 make possible the very complete utilization, with 

 practically no expense, of the valuable leads 

 from related fields on which so much of prog- 

 ress depends. 



(4) Current files. A single, large, strong 

 journal could acquire by exchange or purchase 

 much of the current serial literature in which 

 its material appears. Chemical Abstracts now 

 receives 550 serial publications, by exchange 

 and purchase, which are available for abstract- 

 ing purposes. The small journal does not have 

 the resources to accomplish this, and yet such 

 files are indispensable for properly carrying on 

 the work. It is to be hoped that some day all 



American abstracting agencies at least may be 

 brought into correlation in order that they may 

 share each other's facilities; all the services 

 would inevitably profit by such correlation. 



(5) Support. Fundamental to the ultimate 

 success of such a comprehensive undertaking 

 would be the adoption of the journal as an of- 

 ficial organ of the proposed Federation. Grant- 

 ing that it can be manufactured, as I believe 

 it can, for from $6.00 to $8.00 annually, I am 

 inclined to believe that practically all of us 

 would be willing to pay that amount annually 

 for a virtually complete abstracting and index- 

 ing service of the world's literature in our re- 

 spective fields, especially when it brings in ad- 

 dition equal service in other biological fields 

 in which we have an interest. If this were 

 done, in other words, if a Biological Abstracts, 

 or whatever you choose to call it, had the solid 

 backing of the biologists of America at least, 

 support, perhaps a permanent endowment, 

 might be secured sufficient to cover the over- 

 head, in which ease the joui'ual could be sold 

 for practically manufacturing cost. Moreover, 

 such an endowment would reasonably guarantee 

 that the work would go forward properly un- 

 der practically all conditions. There is little 

 hope that the numerous separate journals with 

 small backing can command such support. In- 

 deed, the history of these shows that they can 

 not. 



Let me make it clear, however, that the joint 

 publications committee has no power. Its func- 

 tion is to ascertain and report the facts. The 

 decision rests with the societies. The committee 

 is by no means ready to report, and I have 

 little idea as to what will be the nature of its 

 report when all factors have been taken into 

 consideration. But I personally ventui'e to pre- 

 dict that the permanent solution of the problem 

 lies in the direction of the establishment of a 

 single biological abstracting journal having the 

 unified support of all, or practically all, Ameri- 

 can biological organizations at least. Obvious- 

 ly, such a solution would necessitate the merg- 

 ing of several existing biological abstracting 

 and bibliographic agencies, and this, of course, 

 should not be done unless it is certain that a 

 real improvement will be efceeted thereby. We 

 mav rest assiu'ed that those controlling the ex- 



