Showing papers by "Eugene Garfield published in 1984"

Anthropology Journals: What They Cite and What Cites Them

Abstract: by EUGENE GARFIELD Institute for Scientific Information, 3501 Market St., University City Science Center, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104, U.S.A. 8 I 83 Over the years, we have published a number of journal citation studies. These studies identify the significant journals of a given field. Recently we investigated journals in the earth sciences, neurosciences, and arts and humanities (Garfield 1982 a, b, c). In connection with the International Congress on Anthropology being held in Vancouver, we decided to study anthropology journals indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Indexg (SSCI'). So we have identified some of the \"core\" journals in the field and examined how these core journals cite one another. According to A. L. Kroeber, editor of Anthropology Today, anthropology is \"a science devoted to the study of man, the study of differences and similarities of all aspects of the life of man without limitation in time and space\" (Li 1980: 136). The field has two major branches. Physical anthropology examines the origins of the human species and physical variations within it. Cultural anthropology is concerned with human behavior and its \"artifacts\"-material objects, social systems, religious beliefs, language, etc. (Kardiner 1980). A diverse group of disciplines is related to the general heading of cultural anthropology-linguistics, ethnology, ethnography, social anthropology, and applied anthropology, to name only a few. The term \"anthropology\" is derived from a combination of the Greek anthropos, meaning \"man,\" and the ubiquitous logos, denoting, in this case, \"account\" (Kardiner 1980). It first came into use during the Renaissance. Writers at that time defined anthropology in a variety of ways, for example, as \"a description of the body and soul\" and \"the laws of their union\" or as \"the history of human nature\" (White 1964). Physical anthropology has its origins in the work of eighteenth-century naturalists. Cultural anthropology can be traced to the compendia of customs produced by European social philosophers and other scholars during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By the late nineteenth century, anthropologists had begun to produce influential theoretical works using evolutionary theory as a unifying frame of reference. In addition, much work in the field was sponsored by museums interested in expanding their collections. It was at this point that scientific societies and journals bearing anthropological titles began to appear (White 1964). The oldest anthropology journals indexed in the SSCI and included in this study were in fact founded during this era. They are Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde (Contributions to Linguistics, Geography, and Ethnology), established in Holland in 1853; Bulletins et Memoires de la Socie'te' d'Anthropologie de Paris, first published in 1860; and Zeitschrift fiur Ethnologie, founded in Germany in 1865. As you can see, anthropology is an old and international field. Table 1 lists the 41 \"core\" anthropology journals included in this study, along with their first dates of publication. The list certainly does not include every anthropology journal pub-

Continuing relevance of superimposed coding

Abstract: are no longer relevant. I can’t agree. Every futurist has told us how vastly increased memories would reduce the need for efficient coding schemes. But as soon as main frame computers began to give way to minis, we already saw the advent of micros. The memories on these machines are larger than the mainframes I used on my dissertation (Univac I), but they are still inadequate to many information storage problems. We used superimposed coding methods successfullv in the design of So-Alate software. Users do not have to understand the details of the theory behind superimposed coding. I didn’t when I first used it with the IBM 101 statistical machine and neither did Peter Luhn when he saw it demonstrated at the Welsh Medical Library in 1952. I have no doubt that Calvin Mooers did when he developed Zato-coding but when Claire Schultz applied it to her use of the 101, she too used it heuristically. Coding schemes will always be interesting because we have an insatiable appetite for information.

Iatrogenic information overload

Abstract: and information demand is amusing if not entirely metaphoric. But you omitted the already well-defined disease information overload. You fail to state that more often than not, it is iatrogenic in origin. The unsuspecting client has a minor short-term symptom or need but is overdosed with ex-orbitant quantities of the wrong medicine. The general purpose antibiotic is prescribed when an aspirin tablet is sufficient. The information establishment is at fault because it still has not established appropriate standards of performance. Relevance , recall or precision seem to be the only devices employed. Heaven forbid that we recommend a new system that finds just the right reference when tried and true methods will produce hundreds. P.S. I disapprove of untitled editorials and suggest you drop the practice. If it isn't worth including the title, then it isn't worth writing.

Review of Sci-Mate™

Abstract: Excerpt To the editor: Thank you for an accurate and objective review of our Sci-Mate™software package (1). We believe that the true test of a software product's worth is in trials by users and rev...

The myth of the vicious circle of citation

Abstract: found ten times that number. Elsewhere, these authors claim that a search for references to Nicolas Bourbaki produced 10 citations; our search produced over 2700. When they tried &dquo;to test Garfield’s Indexes&dquo; by tracing citations to semiotic schools, the paper states that they &dquo; found them almost invisible&dquo;: this finding might have greater validity if they had used the appropriate index, the Arts and Humallllles C/latlOn Index. where, in a single year (1982), I found 239 citations of Mukarovsky, 118 of Propp, and 701 of Barthes-all perfectly visible, if one looks in the right place. I could continue, but I hope these examples will suffice to show that those same new schools of thought which Matter and Broms claim