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WALTER J. MURPHY, EDITOR
The I
Technological Reformation: Communication
age, probably the greatest handicap in our utilization of recorded knowledge is finding what we need. Part of the difficulty arises from the sheer size of our inventory. Part comes from the way it is labeled, which usually entangles it deeply within the immediate purposes of the author. Thoughtful technical editors have not been unaware of these problems. In I&EC, to take a single example, most of the special features established in the past six or seven years have been framed with the conscious intent of improved communication. The annual reviews, more symposia, the expanded treatment of I&EC reports, the review of an industry’s development that is part of the monthly plant process articles, the more numerous columns, and the new Briefs section are all pertinent examples. Treatment of Chemical and Engineering News and Analytical Chemistry, and the recent innovation of the Advances in Chemistry Series, could be spelled out in the same way, Our readers tell us these changes have been important improvements. No reasonable person doubts that scientific and technological progress will continue to accelerate with the tried and tested communication systems our civilization now possesses. It would be sheer folly to alter it without overwhelming justification. But let us not be lulled into the complacent conclusion that better systems are not possible. When the body of scientific knowledge was smaller, communication techniques could be essentially empirical and still be reasonably adequate. The reader could cover the literature and his brain could cope with the further operations of selection, integration, and recollection that had t o be performed to utilize the source record. Scientific specialization later developed, but not through any conceded inability of the human mind to grasp the implications of new discoveries outside a limited field. In part it probably was the result of splintering the accumulation into packages small enough to handle with the recording techniques then at hand. And in part, a great clutter of methodology, imperfect theory, nnd fragmentary data, all very limited in significance, is the usual preliminary t o new discovery and a necessary tool of the experimentalist. There was order of a sort in this subdivision, and for a while such fields as medicine, chemistry, biology, and quantum mechanics seemed sufficiently independent that scientists were reconciled to the concept of specialization. Today this compartmentalization does not serve even the rare survivors of the classical school of scientists who are interested only in the intellectual satisfaction of original discovery. Even if they are interested in a very specialized subject, discoveries in other disciplines offer powerful tools. In fact, they often provide the answers to the scientist’s most fundamental questions. The usefulness of this subdivision into “specialties” dwindles to nearly zero when practical application is the motive. Today, for example, a pharmaceutical company faces the painful fact that it must draw from all the fields mentioned and, in addition, should have knowledge of such strange subjects as the intellectual capacities of calculating machines, the social acceptability of new ideas, and the effect of chemical treatment on the personality of N OUR
the human subject. Without the timely invention of the team approach in research, the prospects would seem hopeless. The team can do it, but is it fundamentally efficient to solve such problems with an assembly of specialists, each contributing a fragment of the solution from a fragment of his knowledge? And how much is industry forced into this device of the team of specialists by our present pattern of literature and education? But bether machinery to serve man’s ends has an almost limitless capacity to multiply his powers. And it is encouraging to know that scientific studies of communication are now being made, even though they have hardly passed the exploratory stage The situation challenges us to seek a fundamental new approach that will do what Bacon’s concept of the controlled experiment did for the growth of scientific knowledge. We see the need; we personally cannot yet perceive the answer. Perhaps it will be found in a different principle of scientific classification, more consistent with this era’s usage. A system organized around concepts, techniques, and applications hasinteresting possibilities Most serious technical publications seem to perform two major functions: They are a permanent record of findings and they stimulate the technical imagination. Unfortunately, when the volume of material grows large these two functions sometimes get in eaah other’s way. The I&EC Briefs represent our own effortsto reduce this most practical problem that faces the reader. A reliable formula for communicating inspiration is elusive indeed. Perhaps we are optimistic in even hoping one will be found some day. But developments in powerful new mechanical techniques give great hope in reference searching, although heroic steps are required for full utilization. Information must be translated into a code the machine’s intelligence can grasp, and into a vocabulary that serves the whole spectrum of potential questions. Human judgment should be a minor factor in selecting what should be encoded: If original knowledge is present, it should be encoded regardless of the codifier’s speculation as to its value. Also the encoding job should be performed for all known information irrespective of field, and should be a complete record from the date selected for accumulation of the repository. Staggering as this job would be, it would need to be done only once. With the wholehearted cooperation of authors and the editors of primary publications it even appears practicable. Both the dedicated energies of the individual and the organized attack of the institution are needed. It is heartening to learn that the National Science Foundation has given a research grant of $8400 to the Crerar Scientific Library in Chicago for a year’s study of that institution’s techniques for the dissemination of scie’ntific information. More research in this area is needed. We think the Foundation might seriously consider the economic merit of undertaking a comprehensive collection of scientific knowledge, and be the operating agency for encoding it and providing machine-search services for those who can use it. One conclusion seems inescapable: The tools with which we draw upon our great stockpile of knowledge must be constructed in comparable magnitude, and designed to exploit it fully. 1947
