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Is Shorthand the Route to Success in Science Or CuPF*nteamments” EUGENE GARFIELD INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION= 3S01 MARKET ST, PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104 !., ,,, Is Shorthand the Route to Success ?&<%. in Science or Anything Eise? w(...:x..: Pm 1. History ad Evohstim of gg:,$~,: ; Stessograpidc Languages Number 1 January 7, 1985 Any experienced journalist can per- companies that now use ISl? products form a credible job of reporting on al- regularly were not hiring recent science most any subject you can name, but it is graduates—at least not those in New reasonable to expect that a writer wifl York City. perform better or feel more comfortable In desperation, I responded to a clas- with those subjects in which he or she sfled ad for a sales correspondent at has had some personal experience. My the LaSalle University Correspondence choice of tepics for Current Con tents” School. The basic requirement was typ- (CP ) is colored by the random events ing skill. By another “accident” I had of my life. In particular, the subject of learned typing in high school. Having shorthand systems is one I’ve wanted to failed a few courses in history and En- cover for a long time. My reasons are glish, I made up the missing credhs by quite vaned. As you will observe, short- taking a few “easy” subjects, namely, hand is not only a topic of major scientif- typing, mimeogmphing, office practice, ic and business sign~lcance. Its linguis- and bookkeeping. I used these skills to tic, h~toncal, sociological, and techno- great advantage in college and in busi- logical ramifications are fascinating. ness. Presumably, the two major aims of As an employee of the school, I not shorthand are to reduce redundancy and only learned their techniques of maif or- to convey as much information as possi- der and telephone sales but was allowed ble with the smallest amount of writing. to take courses offered to students These goals are certainly laudable, par- through ads in Popular Science and ticularly in this verbiage-ridden age of other magazines. One of the courses was the “information explosion.” In the fiist stenotypy. I had learned the basics by part of this essay, I’ll discuss the history the time I left that job to return to chem- and development of the major short- istry. A small consulting lab on the East hand systems, includlng stenotypy. The Side of New York, Evans Research & second part will deal with the impact of Development Corporation, needed a dictation machines, tape recorders, and chemistry technician to help with “re- other modem technologies on short- search” on shampoos, denture powders, hand in the workplace. and other projects. At Evans, I spent the My early interest in stenography was first week doing viscosity measure- accidental. When I graduated from Co- ments. But a few weeks after I arrived, lumbia University, New York, in 1949, another accident occurred. My boss with a major in chemistry, there was a asked me to take the minutes of a con- significant recession in the US. I tried in ference with a client. When I turned in vain to find a job as a chemist. Some of my typewritten notes an hour later he the large pharmaceutical and chemical was quite surprised. Although I had only 1 used some of the short forms I had who was pontificating about information learned in stenotypy, I was a rapid typist retrieval and chemical literature like a and remembered what I had missed. fundamentalist preacher. When I suggested they buy me a steno- After listening to his lecture and a few type machine, it was decided that it others, I realized that some people were would not be practical to push the ma- actuallypaid for doing the kind of work I chine around the lab. More important, loved. I asked him how I could get a job they felt that taking notes so conspicu- in thk field. That’s how I was converted ously in the presence of a client would be to information science. too disquieting. So I returned to doing ti- From that point on, my life changed, trations. One day, I felt the conse- and within a few months I was working quences of an overheated beaker of sul- at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, furic acid. As I was weighing some re- Maryland. Perry had introduced me not agents on the other side of the lab, the only to the world of punched cards but beaker exploded. Fortunately, it only also to the world of scientific documen- burned the back of my lab coat. So I tation.2 jumped at the opportunity presented by During those early years, I remember another chance event. how the experiences of Broadway pr~ My cousin, Sidney Bernhard, was tak- ducer Billy Rose impressed me.s He had ing his PhD at Columbia with Louis P. advised young men to become stenogra- Hammett. He needed a lab assistant. phers and secretaries in order to prepare Naturally, I seized the opportunity to re- themselves for corporate success. Being turn to Columbia. Hammett introduced secretary to the boss was the fastest way me not only to physical organic chemis- to learn all about a business. It was the try but also to the world of chemical lit- shorthand route to success. Since then I erature. I His personal library included a have often wondered why more young complete set of Chemica/ A bstracts, and men do not realize this. It is unfortunate he was also editor of a chemical book that society views secretarial work as series published by McGraw-Hill. somehow demeaning. It certainly lacks I soon found out that I was more inter- the machismo often associated with fac- ested in creating an index to the depart- tory tasks. However, computerization mental closetful of chemical compounds and automation in the factory and office than in the exhausting, often dangerous have changed all that. We’ve alf become job of preparing picrate compounds de information technologists of one kind or no vo in the lab. After my second or third another. explosion, Hammett tactfully suggested At the Johns Hopkins University that I should try another field. Welch Medical Library Indexing Proj- I decided to apply for a job as a secre- ect, I met many people from the Army tary to the director of research at the Medical Library, now the National Lk Ethyl Corporation, Detroit, Michigan. brary of Medicine. One of them was He wanted someone who could take tra- Robert Hayne.4 He was a remarkable ditional dictation, so I quickly enrolled typist and stenographer in addition to in a stenography course at a business being a classicist and linguist. When I school in downtown New York. I was became a consultant, I helped recruit thus exposed to real shorthand. Were it Hayne for Smith, Kline and French Labs not for yet another accident, I might ~SK&F). A short time later, Irv Sher have gone to Detroit as a chemical secre- came to SK&F. Sher was a biochemist, tary. but he had also studied Chinese in the ar- It was now 1951, I happened to attend my. And he had a special interest in my fmt American Chemical Society shorthand systems-even those for meeting. There I met James W. Perry, Udnese. We all shared an interest in 2 chemical and scientific nomenclature to save time as well as to keep written along with other facets of information communications secret from the lower science. Later on, Hayne and Sher came ranks and conquered peoples.7 (p. 13) In to work at 1S1 where we experimented the Roman senate, teams of shorthand with many systems involving the nomen- writers took turns transcribing the pro- clature-notation interface. So it is not ceedhgs, writing with metal styli on clay surprising that 1S1 was one of the first or- tablets. The system was taught in more ganizations to use a chemical shorthand than 400 schools, and many emperors system after we started Index Chemi- and statesmen became accomplished cus@ in 1960. shorthand writers. Leaders of the early Sher is now director of development Christian church also used shorthand. In and quality control here at 1S1. He has fact, the Catholic Church, which used maintained hk keen interest in short- Latin as its primary language, perpetuat- hand systems. He has even designed a ed TUO’S method for more than a thou- system of hk own—Sherhand. He notes sand years. However, with the fall of the that thousands of shorthand methods Roman Empire and the advent of the have been developed throughout hktory Dark Ages, the use of shorthand de- in most Ianguages.s The origins of short- creased, as did the level of literacy in hand, however, are somewhat unclear. general. Few references are made to John Robert Gregg, author of what is shorthand after the fifth century AD.6 perhaps the best-known shorthand (p. 13) method in the US, was also a shorthand It was not until the 16th century that a historian. Shorthand was used by the an- major shorthand system was devised in cient Egyptians and by the Hebrews in Britain. Unlike Tire’s cursive system, Old Testament times.b (p. 1) The Greeks these later methods were geometri- are also known to have used shorthand. cal—based on a geometric shape such as For example, Hans Glatte, in hk review a circle or ellipse. English physician and of world shorthand systems, notes that parson Timothy Bright published in 1588 the philosopher and historian Xenophon his C’hamcterie: An An of Short, Swift, used an ancient shorthand system to re- and Secret Wn”ting by Chamcter.8 cord the memoirs of Socrates.7 (p.
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