NEWS I
July 1 1 1955 WALTER J. MURPHY, Editor
Research on the Dissemination o f Scientific Knowledge .EXPENDITURES for research and development in this country now are well in excess of $3 billion a year, with t h e Government picking up the check for approximately half of this amount. This figure of $ 3 billion is astronomical when compared with total U. S. research expenditures i n the past, even in the years immediately prior to World War II. However, the $3 billion figure does not seem to be adequate to the members of the Hoover Commission who strongly recommend a 1956 research box score of $4.5 billion, with Government paying ror $2.4 billion. The commission also strongly recommends greater emphasis on basic research (C&EN, June 13, page 2502 0 3 ) . W e know of no study that has been made o n what is being spent the world over on research, but certainly the grand total constitutes a rather fantastic sum of money. If we are to believe that Russia is catching up with us very rapidly scientifïcally and technologically, then w e must assume that the Soviets are spending huge sums of money on research and development. It is hard to find any mo*.•'*; η country that is not including money for research and devel opment in government budgets. The long-term outlook for further increases in t h e amounts spent on research and development would seem to be one of indefinite growth. Most of us are now quite familiar with E. J. Crane's growth chart showing his extrapolation of the expected expansion in Chemical Abstracts i n the next five years. Many other growth indicators could be cited. H o w much is being spent on research to find the most efficient and effective methods for the wide dissemination of this new scientific knowledge? We know of n o over-all study that discloses how much is being spent for this pur pose, but we suspect it is pitifully small. Isn't it about time that something concrete be done to correct a situation which everyone will admit is fast becoming the bottleneck in science? As scientists and technologists we are verymuch like the shoemaker's children who traditionally go barefoot. If o n e looks at a cross section of the scientific and techni cal journals, at least those usually considered fundamental, it is hard to escape the conclusion that in appearance there has been very little change down through the centuries. We have yet to s e e a budget of any scientific or technical journal that contains a specific item calling for research in this direction. The editors of the ACS industrial publications have in troduced a variety of innovations and new features in the
past 10 years. In l&EC, for example, w e include such staflF-written or staff-inspired features as Collaborative StaffIndustry Reports on N e w Products and Processes, Annual Reviews on Unit Operations and Unit Processes, Funda mentals of Chemical Engineering, and Chemical Engineer ing Materials of Construction. On a biennial basis, Chemi cal Facts and Figures on the Process Industries supplies a most comprehensive economic and financial study of the chemical industry. All these features were introduced after much research on reader interests and habits, yet no item on research, as such, has ever been included in an la-EC budget. In a recent article entitled "Service—Good Buy or Goodb>" (C&EN, June 27, page 2752) E. J. Crane, now known as director of Chemical Abstracts Service, stated, "Research broadly defined has long been in the CA picture though not separately labelled, budgeted, and organized." Crane's article told of the many research projects that have been going on at CA headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, for a number of years. Crane would be the first to admit, how ever, that in a broad sense only a beginning has been made and much more remains to be done in view of t h e fact that the avalanche of chemical literature continues to gain momentum throughout the world. The directors of the ACS always have been sympathetic to the problem of finding more efficient and effective methods for the wide dissemination of new scientific and techno logical information and, from time to time, have contributed rather modest sum 1 for special research projects of such a character. It is a reasonable assumption, w e believe, to say that the Board will spend more rather than less in these directions in the future that it has in the past. This problem is of prime importance to every scientific and technical society throughout the world and to every scientist, technologist, and engineer. Considerably more money will be needed in the future to finance studies on how best to disseminate scientific information. Perhaps this is an area in which Government can help through its instrument, the National Science Foundation. It is an area that calls for cooperative efforts by all the scientific and technical societies. To organize and to ad minister such a gigantic undertaking constitutes an almost impossible task. If it is not done in some efficient way in the not too distant future, w e will soon have a modern Tower of Babel. We are well on the way at the present moment.
