PERSONAL NEWS Eugene Garfield (1925–2017) ‘To strive, to seek, to find, and not to cited an earlier work. It became useful name of the newspaper distribution com- yield’ for retrieval, for research on the nature of pany of his father. –Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson science and for science policy. Today it As he was good in math and scored a is a powerful tool for the historical and 100 in the Regent’s Exam, he was admit- Eugene Garfield, the celebrated informa- sociological study of science. It is this ted to the prestigious Stuyvesant High tion scientist and inventor of the Science idea which later led to the development School, known for excellence in math Citation Index, died on 26 February. He of Google. Indeed, Larry Page and Sergey and science. But after a year or two, Gar- Brin, founders of Google, have cited Gar- was 91 and lived in Brynmawr, a suburb field left this school for a combination of field in their academic work. of Philadelphia. reasons: he wanted to learn many foreign The impact of his work was felt in aca- languages but the school curriculum did demia and policymaking bodies through- not encourage it; he had no real mentors out the world and in science, technology, there; and he had to commute all the way social sciences, and humanities. from the Bronx to 14th Street in Manhat- Belver Griffith, his long time friend, tan every day. He joined the DeWitt attributed Garfield’s success to ‘early Clinton High School, which was near his and deep insights regarding the struc- home in the Bronx and where he could tures of scientific literatures and the na- learn Spanish and German. By this time ture of scientific communication’. the family had moved to West Bronx He rose from humble beginnings to where there was a branch of the New reach the pinnacle of fame, but his life York Public Library across the road. He was one of ups and downs. It was by used to go into the library not to read sheer persistence and the force of his books in the children’s section but to ideas he made it a success. He was a scan the titles of books in the library’s modern day Ulysses who had enjoyed adults section. By the time he finished greatly, had suffered greatly, and be- school, he had scanned the titles of al- come a name; for always roaming with a most all the books. They were all in his hungry mind much had he seen and head and he was wondering how to make known. He was constantly yearning to sense of it all. Years later he knew the follow knowledge like a sinking star. Another great idea that occurred to answer: classification. Garfield in the early 1960s was to have a Garfield had to work hard when not in Simple ideas daily newspaper for science that would school. When he was 9, he was deliver- deal with ‘the business of science: those ing groceries, and working in a laundry The databases he created were based on matters that are relevant to professionals for a meagre fee; later on he worked in simple ideas, but had far reaching impact working in the scientific arena – bench his uncle’s garment shop. and tremendous utility. For example, scientists, professors of science, science Early on Garfield imbibed his work Current Contents is basically a weekly administrators, and laypersons who for- ethic and doggedness from his mother collection of the contents pages of hun- mulate or monitor science policy’. If whom he called a ‘speed demon.’ She dreds of journals along with author ad- businessmen have Wall Street Journal was pretty fast in everything she did – dresses and a subject index. The actual and Financial Times, why not scientists reading, writing, crocheting, cooking, number of its users far exceeded the have a paper of their own? Eventually and housekeeping. He learnt from her combined readership of Nature and Sci- The Scientist came out as a monthly in that one should never stop till the job at ence. And it provided him a platform to October 1986 and a biweekly since 1987. hand was finished. air his views week after week on a range Since 2002 it is a daily and is accessible Garfield also came under the influence of topics to a worldwide audience. free on the net. Science and Nature of his five maternal uncles, three of Science Citation Index (SCI) was based started devoting more space to non- whom were Marxists and the other two on the simple idea that ‘if two items are original research items, after Garfield were capitalists. There was constant tur- connected because one mentions the started The Scientist. moil in the family, but the young Gar- other, they are likely related’. Garfield field acquired business acumen, made a big leap from there: by gathering radicalism, atheism, and a love for clas- and putting together all the references in Early life sical music. One of the Marxist uncles all the papers in all the important jour- nals he made it possible for us to perform Born in 1925 in New York city’s East gifted him a copy of J. D. Bernal’s Social prospective as well as retrospective Bronx borough into a family of European Functions of Science when he was just searches of the literature. With SCI and immigrants, Eugene Garfinkel was raised 14, and the book left a lasting impression other citation databases, one could move by his mother with the support of her on him. Bernal became his hero, whom back in time to locate previously pub- eldest brother. His father had left his he met years later at the International lished papers as well as move forward in mother even before he was born. His un- Conference on Scientific Information time to determine who has subsequently cle changed his name to Garfield, the which was held in Washington, DC. 1282 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 112, NO. 6, 25 MARCH 2017 PERSONAL NEWS Collegiate education and becoming In 1953 Garfield organized the ‘First ployee, Beverly Bartolomeo, as his sec- an entrepreneur Symposium on Machine Methods in Sci- retary. She stayed on with the company, entific Documentation’. On learning became a senior director, and retired in After finishing school, Garfield joined about the symposium, a former vice 2005. An exemplar of loyalty! In 1960, the University of Colorado in 1942 for a president of Shepard’s Citations, Wil- Garfield renamed his company Institute B S in chemical engineering. The war in- liam Adaire, wrote to Garfield about the for Scientific Information or ISI, so it terrupted and he later joined the Univer- interest evinced by some engineering so- would sound like a non-profit organiza- sity of California, Berkeley as a premed ciety in using their methods. Garfield tion. His idea was to do with a small staff student, but after two years decided to looked up Shepard’s Citations and he all that VINITI, the Soviet Union’s mega return to New York. Subsequently he immediately realized how he could link institute, was doing. earned a B S in chemistry from Colum- bibliographic references to build the cita- Garfield had always been interested in bia University in 1948. tion index for science, as he had been chemistry and was not happy with the Soon he got to work as a lab assistant looking for that kind of structure. indexes produced by Chemical Abstracts to Louis Hammett at Columbia and he The Welch Library project was com- (CA) as they were several years late. even had a paper with him in Journal of ing to a close and Garfield was advised With the algorithm he had developed he the American Chemical Society. He was to take a degree in library science if he could index chemical compounds much not good at lab work and after a few ex- wanted to remain in the field. With the faster, and thus was born Current Ab- plosions, he left Columbia. He got a con- help of references from leading informa- stracts of Chemistry & Index Chemicus. sultant position with Smith, Kline and tion scientists whom he had met while at This product could not win expected French, who needed a pharmaceutical the Welch Library, he got into Columbia market response, as CA was an estab- documentalist. In order to give the im- University. He completed his M S in one lished product. It lost money for twenty pression that he was not just a lone self- year and topped the class. He had even years, but Garfield did not close it down employed person, he adopted the busi- submitted a paper on the preparation of as he had invested his ego; besides, there ness name Eugene Garfield Associates. printed indexes by automatic punched- was a very loyal staff of chemists whom At a meeting of the American Chemical card techniques to American Documenta- he would not like to lay off. He sup- Society, he met James Perry, a pioneer in tion even before the degree was awarded ported it with the money earned by Cur- the field of chemical literature, and real- in 1954. He decided to pursue doctoral rent Contents. ized that one could get paid for searching work in machine translation. Garfield brought out many other great the literature. Perry arranged for him to It was also around that time he wrote products such as Citation Classics, Atlas be hired by Sanford Larkey of the Welch his seminal paper on citation indexing of Science and the software HistCite.