THE SUPPLY OF INFORMATION TO THE SCIENTIST: SOME PROBLEMS OF THE PRESENT DAY Available to Purchase

The International Conference on Scientific Information which will be held in November 1958 in Washington is the first large‐scale sequel to the Royal Society Conference on Scientific Information of 1948. In the ten intervening years there has been such a multiplication of scientific publications, despite some efforts at rationalizing their production, that the problem which seemed vast enough ten years ago is now considered so great as to defy dealing with as a whole even in such a large‐scale international conference. The Royal Society Conference attempted to deal with every aspect of scientific publication; with the method of producing scientific papers, with the organization of journals where original work is published—abstracts, reports—and with the processes of filing and finding information. The Washington conference is definitely more limited in its scope. It is essentially concerned with the provision of effective storage and retrieval mechanisms rather than with the question of publication. In the words of its own announcement, ‘emphasis will be placed on the critical examination and appraisal of techniques, mechanisms, systems and organization for the storage and retrospective search of scientific information and particularly upon recent research studies in these aspects. Problems concerned with primary publication and dissemination will not be considered except incidentally. The practical point of view of the using scientist—whether he be an isolated individual depending on a small library or one who has access to a large information retrieval centre—will be kept foremost.’