The guru of Information Science, Eugene Garfield, was aghast as to “the terrible things journals do to us.” Personal examples of such
grouses are given. The cure is prescribed in terms of the desirable practices of putting essential data on the first page.
Keywords: Journals, Title, Volume, Reprints, Photocopies, First Page
The guru of Information Science, Eugene Garfield, [1] was
aghast concerning “the terrible things journals do to us.” He instanced
the things which needed to be corrected, cited them, and
then presented the needed corrections.
Thousands of reprints, which I requested for, from all over the
world, were studied. It was forty of them that provided clues for
evaluating the above surprising title. It was part of the title discussed
sensitively by him in the weekly Current Contents in 1983
under “Idiosyncrasies and Errors, or the Terrible Things Journals
Do to Us.” As he instanced, “I had complained that even though the
first page of every article included the journal’s name, date and pagination,
the volume was omitted” [1]. Therefore, let me dilate on
the idiosyncrasies which I spotted. Of the 40 reprints, up to eight
contained no reference pages [2-9]. Most commonly, journals left
out volume numbers [10-38]. Incidentally, most of these were from
USA, this being merely a reflection of what I discovered when I analyzed
2,049 reprint requests sent to me from all over the world, [39]
namely, that USA outdistanced all countries in the reprints race. Curiously,
information journals also deleted volume numbers. College
& Research Libraries, [14] and Library Journal [24] featured in this
respect. And so did Scholarly Publishing [35]. Little wonder that
Whole Earth Review [39] published a work entitled “Every system
of knowledge is blind.” Certainly, numerous journals in this series
had a blind spot for volume numbers. One author [18] rectified
matters himself by inserting 2, the volume number, in his photocopy
of Head and Neck Surgery reprint. Altogether, 14 (35%) of the
received reprints were photocopies. This shows the extent to which
scientists go in order to assist requesters. Be that as it may, I would
plead that some extra trouble should be taken to add any missing
volume, pages, etc.
In this connection, it is well to mention that, in addition to the
requested reprints, several authors relished sending what may be
called bonus reprints, i.e., unrequested reprints. However, much as
I received them gratefully, they would serve their purpose better
if the missing reference data had been provided. Certainly, when
I received Keith Green’s [15] “An evaluation of citation-return on
reprints,” I wrote him and he supplied the volume number [40] adding
nicely, “Thank you for your interest in our work.”
In the final analysis, to eliminate the current idiosyncrasies is
possible. As O’Brien put it [41] “I might persuade editors to commence
all articles on a right-hand page and to put the journal name,
volume number, and year at the foot of each page.” Perhaps, it is really
enough to put these data and the inclusive pagination on every
first page [42].
ISSN: 2574 -1241
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