Orderly communication through research journals may be jeopardized by a developing national information system that is beginning to encroach on the domain of the primary publication system. The author also believes mass distribution of unedited, unreferred and often unproofread preprints, which has recently been proposed, would put journals out of business or transform them into depositories.
STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL of information is currently a subject of considerable urgency and one that affects all branches of science. I know that PHYSICS TODAY readers are concerned about the problem, and I suspect that they are, as I am, rather uneasy about many trends in journal publication. I want to discuss some of them in detail, but first I would like very briefly to present some background information.
2. COSATI Report PB 168 267 (AD 624 560). Recommendations for National Document Handling Systems in Science and Technology, available from Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information, US Department of Commerce, Springfield, Va. 22151.
3. V. Z. Williams, E. Hutchisson, H. C. Wolfe, PHYSICS TODAY 19, no. 1, 45 (1966); https://doi.org/PHTOAD P. A. Atherton, PHYSICS TODAY 19, no. 1, 58 (1966).https://doi.org/PHTOAD
More about the authors
Simon Pasternack,
The Physical Review, American Physical Society.
Cognizant of their role within the scientific community, scientific societies had to weigh how to respond to the actions by the Atomic Energy Commission.
