Well, given the international science community's traditional reliance on print and telecommunications, and the rapid growth of the Internet to facilitate collaborative research, current realities make the Times complaint misguided. Until there are universally acceptable ID codes for each of us, we need all of these numbers. Throughout my career as a science communicator, I've consistently urged that all authors--no matter the communications medium--provide as much address information as possible in their letters, scholarly papers, proposals, and so forth in order to foster maximum dialogue.
About 35 years ago, as publisher of Current Contents, I decided to include author reprint addresses, since the flow of reprints is fundamental to the research process. My decision turned out to be a wise one. The number of reprint exchanges prompted by Current Contents annually is estimated to be in the millions.
At first, of course, the addresses were used primarily for surface and ...
