How does one honor a scholar whose intellect, drive, and business acumen led to the development of a field that changed the way millions of scholars go about their work?
SLIS Dean Blaise Cronin and coauthor Helen Barsky Atkins considered writing a biography of Eugene Garfield, whom they describe as "the undisputed patriarch of citation indexing," but decided instead to chronicle Garfield's life and achievements through a festschrift. The result is The Web of Knowledge, a collection of writings by more than 35 authors on the history of Garfield and his Science Citation Index and on the application of his work in the sciences and beyond.
The book tells of Garfield's discovery of his passion for organizing information, of his genius in developing the SCI and subsequent indexes, and of his founding of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), a highly successful information publishing company based in Philadelphia.
It examines the impact of Garfield's work on international collaboration in science, discusses the value and role of citations in research, and explores the influence of Garfield's work on the sociology of the scientific process.
In short, the monograph gives a panoramic account of the breadth and depth of Garfield's work, paying tribute to one man's determination to bring a vision to life.
The book was published in time for Garfield's 75th birthday celebration at a conference hosted by ISI in Philadelphia in September. Garfield received a leather-bound copy of the book at an official presentation during the American Society for Information Science and Technology annual meeting in Chicago in November.
The Web of Knowledge: A Festschrift in Honor of Eugene Garfield, edited by Blaise Cronin and Helen Barsky Atkins, is published by the American Society forInformation Science. For more information, see http://www.infotoday.com/catalog/asist.htm.
Related SLIS NEWs stories:
Honoring The Father Of Hyperlinking, Eugene Garfield
ISI Web of Science Pioneer Honored by SLIS's Dean Cronin
Posted December 08, 2000