Is the literature worth retrieving?

SEP 01, 1966

With new techniques rapidly increasing the storage of physics literature, we should limit information retrieval to critical review articles and data compilations despite the loss of author credit that might follow. A good review article makes obsolete much of the literature that it summarizes. But getting good reviews is a problem. To get more good ones, we should organize teams of writers encouraged by attractive honoraria.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3048467

Samuel A. Goudsmit

AFEW YEARS AGO John Maddox, now editor of Nature, wrote an article seriously questioning whether the scientific literature was worth keeping. He complained that style and incorrect sentence construction often make scientific articles unintelligible, thus hastening their obsolescence.

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References

1. J. Maddox, Is the Literature Worth Keeping?, Rockefeller Institute Review, Feb. 1963; reprinted in The Graduate Journal of the University of Texas, Winter 1964.
2. A. Pais, Rev. Mod. Phys. 38, 215 (1966).https://doi.org/RMPHAT

More about the authors

Samuel A. Goudsmit, American Physical Society.