278
Russell C. Coile
Suggestion
An interesting solution to some of the problems of error detection
was mentioned by Addelston (9) at the symposium on error control in
chemical literature. Dr. Fieser, author of Topics in Organic Chemistry, was
quoted as follows:
`When a new book is prescribed for use in one
of our courses, I offer a prize of $1.00 for each error
discovered in order that the fi rst reprinting can be corrected
as fully as possible.'
Perhaps some variation on this theme for our computerized databases
is in order.
References
l. Sher, Irving H., Garfi eld, Eugene, and Elias, Arthur W. 1966. `Control and
Elimination of Errors in ISI Services.' Journal of Chemical Documentation.
1966 August; 6 (3): 132-135
2. Caskell, A.E. Director of Research, Institute for Scientifi c Information.
Personal communication.
3. Coile, Russell C. 1975 `Lotka and Information Science.' Journal of
the American Society for Information Science 1975 March-April; 26(2):
l33-134
4. Coile, Russell C. 1975 `Principles of Information Retrieval.' Journal of
Documentation 1975 December; 31(4): 298-301
5. Simon, Herbert A. 1955. `On a class of skew distribution functions.'
Biometrica 1955; 42: 425-440
6. Yule, G. Udny 1924. `A Mathematical Theory of Evolution, based on
the conclusions of Dr. J. C. Willis, F.R.S.' Philosophical Transactions B 1924;
213: 21-
7. Price, Derek J. de Solla 1963. Little Science, Big Science. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1963
8. Price, Derek de Solla 1976. `A General Theory of Bibliometric and
Other Cumulative Advantage Processes.' Journal of the American Society
for Information Science 1976 September; 27(5): 292-306
9. Addelston, Aaron and Goldsmith, Uriel J. 1966. `Procedures for
Detecting Errors in Chemical Literature.' Journal of Chemical Documentation.
1966 August; 6(3): 126-129