KEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 99 



through their representatives and delegates agree with the other na- 

 tions on a plan to continue this great international index to science. 

 Methods and means were very thoroughly considered before be- 

 ginning the publication of the -catalogue in 1901, and the methods 

 then decided on and the classification schedules then published 

 were probably at that time the best means of attaining the end 

 sought ; but the condition of the world and the methods and aims of 

 scientific workers have now so changed that it is apparent that the 

 organization and methods of the International Catalogue need re- 

 vision. The Royal Society of London, which has been the principal 

 sponsor of the catalogue since the beginning, has recently announced 

 that after the completion of the fourteenth annual issue it will be 

 necessary for some new financial agreement to be made in order to 

 continue the work, and has requested the scientific academies 

 throughout the world to offer suggestions as how best to accomplish 

 the end in view. 



It may be well to here consider the need and aim of an inter- 

 national organization to catalogue scientific literature. 



Many of the greatest minds of the day are engaged in researches 

 and investigations the results of which are finally published in some 

 form. It is obvious that means should exist to enable other workers 

 in the same or similar fields as well as the general reader to refer to 

 these publications. 



Revolutionizing advances in many of the arts, industries, and 

 trades are often made by means of scientific research, and what to-day 

 appears to be an abstract investigation in pure science to-morrow 

 becomes a stepping-stone to some epoch-making invention which 

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

 This was true even before the present war, but since then cases of such 

 revolutionary discoveries have multiplied to such an extent that it 

 is hardly necessary to cite examples. All of the sciences have their 

 special journals, many of which publish very complete indexes and 

 even abstracts likely to be of interest to the specialists in various 

 sciences, but there is no publication similar to the International Cata- 

 logue of Scientific Literature, whose aim is to ind^x and classify 

 all of the literature of the pure sciences of the world. It has been 

 one of the aims of the catalogue since the beginning to cooperate with 

 the editors and publishers of other similar indexes in order to obviate 

 duplication of labor. Cooperation of this kind has been accom- 

 plished in several cases, notably that of the Zoological Record, which 

 from 1906 to 1914 was published through the cooperation of the 

 International Catalogue and the Zoological Society of London, with 

 the result that the combined volume was universally acknowledged 

 to be far superior to any index of the kind ever published or, indeed. 



