Node: Eugene Garfield; publisher of Current Contents, inventor of
the Science Citation Index, and founder of ISI, the Institute of
Scientific Information. For extensive account of these developments,
see Paul Wouters Ph. D. dissertation from the University of Amsterdam,
"Citation Culture", also to appear as a book ca. 1999-2000. This letter
was my self-introduction to Garfield, and then a life-long relationship with
him. Cf also: R-63; Q-142; Q-66; SAM-249 ; P-102 and other xf comments on
citation indexing and my critique of its scientometric applications;
Wouters suggests that the context of my enquiry was the self-examination
in the NIH Genetics study section of methods for assessing the value
of research grant investment.
KW: Garfield 1955 Science paper on citation indexing;
Q-68: transcript:
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Memo From: To: Eugene Garfield
J. Lederberg
Genetics Department
Stanford University
Stanford, California
5/9/59
.fi
Since you first published your scheme for a "citation index" in
Science about 4 years ago I have been thinking very seriously
about it, and must admit I am completely sold. In the nature
of my work I have to spend a fair amount of effort in reading
the literature of collateral fields and it is infuriating how often
I have been stumped in trying to update a topic, where your scheme
would have been just the solution! I am sure your critics have
simply not grasped the idea, and especially the point that the
author must learn to cooperate by his own choice of citations
and then he does the critical work.
Have you tried to set this out in an adequate experiment? Would
you look for support from the NSF? Of course you have to count on
opposition from the established outfits, which have already succeeded
in blocking any progressive centralization of the Augean tasks.
Sincerely,
/s/ Joshua Lederberg
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jl 3/20/99
KW:
