DR. EUGENE GARFIELD, PIONEER OF CITATION INDEXING AND ANALYSIS, CELEBRATES 80TH BIRTHDAY

His 1955 groundbreaking paper led to the creation of Web of Science; transforming research

 

Philadelphia, PA USA-London UK - September 12, 2005 —

Today, countless researchers worldwide are able to further their studies and evaluate their work thanks to the process of citation indexing. And it all began with one influential paper published in 1955.

Eugene Garfield, Ph.D. is the founder of ISI (Institute for Scientific Information), which is now part of the Thomson Scientific business of The Thomson Corporation. Dr Garfield is a pioneer in the field of bibliometrics, and will be celebrating his 80th birthday on the 16th of September.

Fifty years ago, on July 15, 1955, Garfield published his groundbreaking paper on citation indexing, “Citation Indexes for Science: A New Dimension in Documentation through Association of Ideas.” This paper laid the foundation for the widely used—ISI Web of KnowledgeSM—the integrated, Web-based platform from Thomson Scientific.

His innovative paper envisioned the tools that allow researchers to expedite their research process, evaluate the impact of their work, spot scientific trends, and trace the history of modern scientific thoughts.

Creating the Science Citation Index

Before Garfield’s finding, searching for relevant information in published scientific papers was a long and difficult process that often did not yield the desired results. Garfield realized that, since scientific indexes were discipline oriented, researchers weren’t getting all the information relevant for their work. Researching a scientific area solely by its subject or keywords limited findings by ignoring relevant papers from other disciplines.

“Traditionally, indexing was done within each scientific discipline,” said Garfield. “The Science Citation Index—now available on the ISI Web of Knowledge—integrated the data by taking an interdisciplinary approach. Researchers in one field often create work relevant to researchers in another.”

The Science Citation Index, Garfield proposed, would also be helpful to researchers when tracking down the origin of a scientific idea.

In 1964, almost 10 years after making his proposal, Garfield introduced the first Science Citation Index as a five-volume print edition indexing 613 journals and 1.4 million citations. Two years later, Science Citation Index became available on magnetic tape.

Initially, data retrieval from the printed Science Citation Index was time consuming, but access via magnetic tapes expanded use of the product especially by bibliometricians, and those interested in studying the quantitative aspects of science publication and library science. The Science Citation Index was later released on CD-ROM, along with the Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities citation indexes. These were later combined in a Web environment and the Web of Science was born. And, as Garfield envisioned, researchers enthusiastically embraced cited-reference researching.

“Garfield’s vision was ahead of its time,” said Henry Small, chief scientist of Thomson Scientific. “He saw the potential of citation searching for researchers, but it took 40 years for the technology to advance to the point that allowed his vision to be fully realized.”

“Eugene Garfield's contributions to information science have strongly influenced me,” said Professor Les Lane, plant pathologist from the University of Nebraska. “Indexing articles by their bibliographies sounds trivial, but creates profoundly useful networks and statistics.”

Measuring Influence: Ensuring Quality

By indexing scholarly work by citation, Garfield allowed researchers to track what other works a paper has referenced and how many times others have cited a paper. And by counting citations, the “Impact Factor” of a work could be measured, assigning an indicator of quality to more influential works.

“Even if there were no other use for a citation index than that of minimizing the citation of poor data, the index would be well worth the effort required to compile it,” Garfield wrote in his 1955 paper.

“Citations are an acknowledgement of intellectual debt,” said Small. “Web of Science lets researchers instantly recognize works that are well regarded by their peers. That way, they know they are basing their work on quality research.”

Putting “Association of Ideas” to Work

The Internet has made citation data more accessible and navigable than ever before. Web of Science provides access to current and retrospective bibliographic information, author abstracts, and cited references found in 8,700 of the world’s leading scholarly, science and technical journals covering more than 100 disciplines and going back to 1900.

Web of Science is a major component of ISI Web of Knowledge, which supports all levels of scientific and scholarly research within academic, corporate, government or non-profit environments. The platform combines high quality, evaluated content with the tools needed to use, analyze and manage that content.

For more information on the history of ISI and Thomson Scientific, or to request an interview with Dr. Garfield, contact Rodney Yancey at 215-386-0100 ext. 1396 or rodney.yancey@thomson.com


Thomson Reuters (www.thomsonreuters.com), with 2005 revenues of approximately $8.5 billion, is a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers. Thomson provides value-added information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate e-learning and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. With operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Thomson has approximately 40,500 employees and provides services in approximately 130 countries. The Corporation’s common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC).

Scientific is a business of Thomson Reuters. Its information solutions assist professionals at every stage of research and development—from discovery to analysis to product development and distribution. Thomson scientific information solutions can be found at www.scientific.thomson.com.