Ch. 10— Information Resources and Computer Systems • 221 
THE AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION 
One of the most important incentives to pub- 
lish, both for people and for organizations, is to 
establish a professional reputation. Although “pub- 
lish or perish” is an enduring part of academic tra- 
dition, in nonacademic research and testing sec- 
tors there is often little incentive to publish. As 
a rule, industry is more concerned with the pro- 
tection of proprietary information and the con- 
servation of financial resources than with pub- 
lishing. 
Federal organizations are likewise more inter- 
ested in carrying out missions required by law than 
in the publication of research and testing data (un- 
less that is their mission). As a result, many agen- 
cies' reports are never sent to the National Tech- 
nical Information Service (NTIS) for distribution 
and cataloging, or too little time is spent indexing 
them in a fashion that facilitates easy retrieval of 
the information. 
Journal Publication Policies 
Because of the importance of journals as a source 
of testing data, their publication policies are cru- 
cial to the effective exchange of information. Some 
journal policies (e.g., the limitations on the length 
of an article and the amount of detail it contains) 
are related to high printing and distribution costs . 
Others, such as an unwillingness to publish results 
that have already been disclosed publicly, are a 
result of the stiff competition that exists among 
journals. 
One of the most frustrating publication policies 
from the standpoint of avoiding duplicative re- 
search and testing is that most journals (and there- 
fore secondary sources) rarely publish negative 
results. It is natural that people would be more 
interested in knowing, for example, which chem- 
icals have been found to be hazardous than which 
chemicals have not. As a consequence, a certain 
number of experimental protocols are repeated 
because the negative results of earlier experiments 
were not published. This policy is not likely to 
change without dramatic alterations in the stance 
of journal publishers, the policies of professional 
societies, and, indeed, the tradition of scholarly 
publication in academia. One notable exception 
to this is the journal Mutation Research , which in 
1977 made it a policy to also publish negative 
results. 
Federal Laws Affecting 
Unpublished Data 
One method available to the Federal Government 
for collecting testing data is to require them, ei- 
ther through registration requirements such as 
those under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and 
Rodenticide Act (Public Law 92-516, as amended 
by Public Laws 94-140 and 95-396), or through 
reporting rules such as those promulgated under 
the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) (Public 
Law 94-469). Section 8(d) of TSCA requires manu- 
facturers and processors to submit citations or cop- 
ies of health and safety studies they have spon- 
sored, or about which they are aware, for specified 
chemicals. As of June 1984, EPA had received over 
6,000 such submissions, about half of which were 
health -effects studies. For the specified chemicals, 
when regulatory notices were published in the Fed- 
eral Register, about one-quarter of the citations 
were to data received under Section 8(d) (10). 
Some unpublished data are given to Government 
agencies voluntarily, either through personal con- 
tacts or in response to publicity that the govern- 
ment is working on a particular problem. Much 
of the data concern adverse effects, but some con- 
cern negative results as well. 
Unlike most countries, the United States has a 
policy of making information held by the Gov- 
ernment as available as possible, consistent with 
protecting its proprietary value. Key laws in 
implementing this policy are the Administrative 
Procedures Act (Public Law 79-404, as amended 
by Public Law 89-554), which encompasses the 
Freedom of Information Act (Public Law 90-23, 
as amended by Public Laws 93-502, 94-409, and 
95-454). This act makes all information held by the 
executive branch of the Federal Government avail- 
able to anyone who asks for it, unless the infor- 
mation is specifically exempted or is protected 
under another law. The person requesting the in- 
formation is frequently required to pay search and 
duplication costs, but the burden is on the Govern- 
ment to show why information should be withheld. 
