It was Faraday who in 1821 said that there are three necessary stages of useful research. The first to begin it, the second to- end it, and the third 1 to publish it. There has since indeed been so much research and publication that we have become increasingly alarmed by the galloping proliferation of scientific information produced in relation to the user's ability to retrieve and consume it effectively, conveniently and creatively. In 1948, to deal with this concern, the Royal Society Scientific Infor- 1 mation Conference held in London spanned the whole realm of scientific in- formation....