Wearing Two Hats: A Challenge And An Inspiration

When The Scientist first appeared in late 1986, it did so under the aegis of the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information. I founded ISI in 1954, and over the years it has become known and respected as the publisher of Current Contents and the supplier of other products, such as the Science Citation Index. These services provide researchers with timely, comprehensive data on the publishing achievements of their peers and of research institutions worldwide. Meanwhile, The Scientist--in its comparatively brief existence as the science community's only newspaper--also has grown dramatically. As its publisher and editor-in-chief, I have overseen its development to the point at which, in 1994, it is delivering news and career guidance to well over 50,000 readers biweekly. I'm told that, although The Scientist became an independent publication more than five years ago--with no direct business or financial ties to ISI--many in the science community still find it difficult to disassociate the two institutions. This is not surprising, since I continue to wear two hats--as ISI founder and The Scientist's publisher. Let's clarify the matter: In my current role as ISI's chairman emeritus, I consult on the company's activities and represent it at meetings in the United States and abroad. I also will be contributing a new monthly column in Current Contents called "Citation Comments." As for The Scientist, I will continue to direct my energies toward the ongoing development of a publication seeking to address the urgent informational, intellectual, and professional needs of its readership. This past December, the individuality of the two organizations was made clear indeed when The Scientist moved its headquarters from the ISI building--which it had occupied for more than seven years--to a brand-new suite of offices just a block away, in the University City Science Center. For those unaware of the move, The Scientist's new address is 3600 Market St., Suite 450, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104. Our new phone number is (215) 386-9601. While The Scientist and ISI are distinctly separate entities, my predilection toward citation-based analyses of the scientific literature--the heart of ISI's efforts and a significant factor in The Scientist's coverage--will no doubt be evident in the future editorial components of both enterprises. For example, the "Citation Classics" feature in ISI's Current Contents has presented, over the past 15 years, more than 5,000 commentaries by authors of significant research publications. While this feature no longer will be included in Current Contents, we plan shortly to introduce it in The Scientist, augmenting the commentaries already appearing in our popular "Hot Papers" section. In The Scientist, the focus of these entries will be on landmark papers and books published during the past few decades; they will treat particularly those research reports concerning discoveries--such as the polymerase chain reaction-- that have had extraordinary impact on the way modern science is done. We will be adding additional elements to The Scientist's editorial mix this year; I'm sure our readers will be pleased to hear, for instance, that we're planning the resumption of book reviewing on a regular basis. And we already have made significant moves toward making our publication much more available and usable electronically. In a Commentary last year ("Electronic Publishing Extends Reach Of Scientists--And Of The Scientist," The Scientist, Feb. 8, 1993, page 12), I announced the implementation of The Scientist, free of charge, on NSFnet and the Internet. (Instructions for electronic access appear on page 3 of each issue.) Over the past year, tapping into The Scientist electronically has evidently become very popular. The number of accesses is increasing dramatically. (It is impossible, of course, to measure the full extent of this acceptance, since each file transfer protocol executed by a single user makes the information available to an unlimited number of other researchers.) Now, we are expanding access through the Electronic Newsstand, a new commercial service on the Internet, through which individual articles published in The Scientist can be conveniently ordered at a nominal fee. Clearly, The Scientist is making its mark--in both its print and electronic versions. And, clearly, ISI continues to play a major role in shaping the behavior of the research community. Wearing two hats is not always easy. But, for me, the satisfactions are well worth the effort and investment.

Wearing Two Hats: A Challenge And An Inspiration

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