Letter to the Editor: ARIST

✍ Scribed by Henderson, Albert

• Book ID: 101340291
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 24 KB
• Volume: 51
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-8231
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-4571(2000)9999:9999<::aid-asi1022>3.0.co;2-9

✦ Synopsis

review of ARIST 33, Birger Hjorland implores us to take a good look at the subject of "tertiary information systems" (Hjorland, 2000). I would like to second the motion and, rather than make a speech, I would quote from the first recommendation from a 1963 report by the President's Science Advisory Committee. It read in part,

We shall cope with the information explosion, in the long run, only if some scientists are prepared to commit themselves deeply to the job of sifting, reviewing, and synthesizing information; i.e., to handling information with sophistication and meaning, not merely mechanically. Such scientists must create new science, not just shuffle documents: their activities of reviewing, writing books, criticizing, and synthesizing are as much a part of science as is traditional research.