526 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VI. No. 1196 



In spite of these abstract journals the 

 task of ohtaining all the references to the 

 literature on a given subject is stiU a 

 formidable one and might be very much 

 simplified by the adoption of some radical 

 changes in the organization of the abstrac- 

 tion and classification of scientific knowl- 

 edge. 



In the first place, there seems to be no 

 reason why abstracts of scientific papers 

 should be prepared by the national so- 

 cieties. At present, for instance, there are 

 at least four complete sets of abstracts of 

 chemical papers prepared in different coun- 

 tries, together with a number of less com- 

 plete sets, and this represents a great over- 

 lapping and duplication of effort. On the 

 other hand, sciences which have not so 

 many or so wealthy workers as chemistry 

 can not afford to produce any complete ab- 

 stract journals, so that in these sciences 

 reference to the literature is much more 

 difficult. There seems to be no reason why 

 an interchange of abstracts between differ- 

 ent countries could not be arranged and, 

 indeed, it might be the best method of ob- 

 taining abstracts to have the author of a 

 paper supply an abstract suitable in form 

 and length for the abstract journal at the 

 same time that he sends his paper in to the 

 journal wliieh publishes it. The editor of 

 that journal could suggest modifications in 

 the abstract which in his opinion were de- 

 sirable and forward both the corrected and 

 uncorrected abstract to the editor of the 

 abstract office, where it would be re-edited 

 for insertion in the international abstract 

 journals and these journals would, of 

 course, be supported by subscriptions 

 either through the societies or individuals 

 in the same way as the abstract journals 

 which are at present published. 



"Whether such an ambitious scheme of 

 international scientific abstracts is capable 

 of realization or not, reference to the ab- 

 stract journals would be made much 



simpler if some method of numerical classi- 

 fication could be adopted. 



In this connection, an experiment has 

 been made in the last two years at the lab- 

 oratory of the Eastman Kodak Company 

 which has proved successful and which 

 seems to be worth trying on a larger scale. 

 The laboratory publishes each month for 

 the use of the employees of the company an 

 abstract bulletin of the photographic jour- 

 nals, including also abstracts from other 

 scientific journals which have any relation 

 to photographic problems or manufacture, 

 the abstracts being made by the laboratory 

 staff, and attached to each abstract is a ref- 

 erence number.- These numbers refer to a 

 pumerical classification of photography 

 based somewhat on a decimal system but 

 adapted to the special needs of the subject. 

 Each month as the bulletin is issued the 

 abstracts are clipped out, pasted on cards 

 and filed under the number printed on 

 them in numerical order so that each recip- 

 ient of the bulletin can prepare for himself 

 a file either of all photographic literature 

 or of any portion of it in which he may be 

 specially interested. For example, in the 

 classification photographic apparatus com- 

 mences with the number "2," and if any 

 particular worker is not interested in any- 

 thing but apparatus, if he has no interest 

 in materials or in photographic processes 

 or in applications of photography, then he 

 need only file the cards starting with "2," 

 while, if his interests are even more lim- 

 ited, if, for instance, he is interested only 

 in photographic shutters, he can file the 

 cards starting with "262" thus obtaining 

 only a very limited file which is, however, 

 complete for the subject in which his inter- 

 est lies. 



If the abstract journals would print such 

 a numerical classification attached to each 

 abstract, adopting as their basis either the 

 numerical classifications of the interna- 

 tional catalogue of scientific literature, 



