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AN INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR THE GEOSCIENCES 
The 
American 
approved 
as a bas 
interest 
10 member Committee on Geoscience 
Geological Institute has prepared 
by the 17 member societies of the 
e for continued planning. We have 
ing sections from the official text 
Informatio 
an officia 
AGI, which 
abstracted 
of the st 
n of the 
1 statement 
is to serve 
below some 
atement.--JAP 
DEFINITION: We define an "information system" as a functioning 
program for the efficient transfer of information, involving all 
conventional channels and services, updated to provide for the 
explosive growth of geoscience information during the past several 
decades, and employing new techniques introduced with the develop¬ 
ment of electronic data processing. 
SCOPE: The system should encompass all types of geoscience infor¬ 
mation. It should be concerned with the following, and other 
areas of information transfer: 
1. Formal meetings and symposia. 
2. Primary journals and monographs. 
3. Translations and review journals. 
4. Bibliographies, abstract journals, and indexes. 
5. Archival holdings of libraries. 
6. Guidebooks and informal reports. 
7. Theses and dissertations. 
8. Data collections. 
9. Glossaries and thesauri. 
10. Maps, charts and photographs. 
11. Collections of interest to geoscientists (type specimens, 
cores, well logs, thin sections, etc.). 
CHARACTERISTICS: The system should be operated for geoscientists 
by geoscientists. The system must not be static. It must be 
flexible enough to accept change when indicated, to admit new 
services that appear to be required, and to abandon services that 
are unused for whatever reasons. System planning should be 
centralized for economy and efficiency, but system operations 
should be decentralized in order to utilize the experience and 
capabilities of those organizations that are now engaged in the 
dissemination of geoscience information, or who may desire to 
become so engaged in the future. The system should include the 
information services provided by all types of organizations with¬ 
in the geoscience community: societies, universities, state and 
federal agencies, industry, and commercial information companies. 
The system should operate economically. The system should be de¬ 
veloped with cognizance of similar systems in other scientific 
disciplines, in order to promote efficiency and economy. It 
should overlap those systems to include the subject matter of 
other disciplines that may be of special interest to geoscientists. 
The system should be user oriented. 
(The report concludes with a list of RESULTS, most of which are 
obvious from the above.) 
