Paradigm change
Paradigm change
复制标题
范式改变
作者：
A. Sibatani
SIR-安德鲁·布鲁克斯（Andrew Brooks）最近的一封信（《自然》杂志 5 月 7 日，第 7 页）建议研究生应该学习信息科学课程，这让人想起约翰逊博士的评论“知识有两种。我们自己了解一个学科，或者我们知道在哪里可以找到有关它的信息”。科学文献的持续增长和世界范围内图书馆预算的削减，使我们更加难以“知道在哪里可以找到有关它的信息”。长期的解决方案似乎是电子出版；一系列数据库，提供由大型数据库支持的书目和摘要信息，其中原始文本以机器可读的形式存储以供全面检索。据估计，1979年，美国在农业、生命科学、纯粹科学和应用科学方面有93个数据库，产生了2600万条记录，而在欧洲，同一学科领域有92个数据库，产生了1900万条记录。评论家预测，这些数据库将在未来五年内迅速增长。用户将不再期望在图书馆中找到他们需要的文章，而是借助在线访问数据库的帮助，将能够快速识别与他们的需求相关的文献并从数据库中调用它。花在培训上的时间应该可以通过节省花在常规文献检索上的时间来补偿。
SIR-The recent letter from Andrew Brooks (Nature 7 May, p. 7) suggesting that research students should take a course in information sciences recalls Dr Johnson's comment" Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information about it". The combination of a continued growth in scientific literature and the worldwide cutback in library budgets is making it more difficult for us to" know where we can find information about it". The long-term solution appears to be electronic publishing; a range of databases giving bibliographic and abstract information backed up by huge databanks where the original text is stored in machine-readable form for full retrieval. It has been estimated that in 1979 there were in the United States 93 databases in agriculture, life sciences, pure and applied science, producing 26 million records, while in Europe there are 92 databases in the same subject area producing 19 million records.Commentators predict that these databases will grow rapidly over the next five years. Users will no longer expect to find the article they require in their library but with the aid of on-line access to the databases will be able rapidly to identify the literature relevant to their needs and to call it up from the databanks. Time spent on training should be more than compensated for by savings in time spent on the customary literature search.