I feel greatly obliged to many people who have supported my research, shaped my thinking, and inspired me with their knowledge, vision, and life experiences. Those who had the most profound influence on my research career include Cécile and Jean Asselineau, Robert Brubaker, Eugene Garfield, Mayer Goren, Edgar Lederer, Guy Ourisson, Howard Sprecher, and Dimitar Veljanov.
The book would not have been what it is now without the interviews of Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri, John Fourkas, Eugene Garfield, Bonnie Lawlor, and Gary Wiggins, who discussed scientific information, research data, and scientific publishing from different perspectives. Dr. Garfield also provided me with some unique images from his archive. They will remind readers how significant his contributions have been for us as users of scientific information.
I would like to thank George Knott, the editor of the book, Glyn Jones, the publisher, and Harriet Clayton, editorial project manager, for helping me with the manuscript and with all that was involved in publishing it. I feel greatly obliged to Donna Kirking, from Thomson Reuters, for her continuous support with EndNote and document formatting.
The interviews with the scientists, editors, publishers, and librarians, who graciously agreed to devote their time to answer my questions, are an addition to this book. My thanks go to all of them, including Alfred Bader, Grace Baysinger, René Deplanque, Michael Gordin, Morris Kates, Richard Kidd, Nigel Lees, David E. Lewis, David R. Lide, James L. Mullins, Maryadele O'Neil, Guy Ourisson, Maureen Rouhi, Eric Scerri, Leah Solla, Arnold Thackray, Bill Town, Andrea Twiss-Brooks, and Bryan Vickery.
During the eight years when I worked at the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Washington, DC, I was able to learn a lot about the chemical profession and scientific publishing, and I am always glad to see former colleagues at ACS national meetings.
I appreciate the support I have received from the University of Maryland College Park Libraries and particularly from Patricia Steele, Dean of Libraries, and Gary White, Associate Dean for Public Services. I benefited from the discussions I had with Jeremy Garritano, Karl Nielsen, Terry Owens, Carlen Ruschoff, and Ben Wallberg, who shared with me their expertise in such areas as discovery tools, eScience, open access, institutional repositories, and research data resources. Alla Balannik and Peter Armstrong, staff members in the White Memorial Chemistry Library, deserve my special thanks for absorbing some of my administrative responsibilities while I was writing this book.
It was a big honor for me to receive the prestigious Val Metanomski Meritorious Service Award from the Division of Chemical Information (CINF) of the American Chemical Society. The award is given to members who have made outstanding contributions to the Division, and it recognized my contributions as editor of the Chemical Information Bulletin, in which capacity I served for five years. I also highly appreciate the support CINF leadership have given for this book in allowing me to include substantial quotes from interviews that I have published in the Bulletin.
The book includes many images from databases and I would like to thank the following publishers for allowing me to use their images: the Chemical Abstracts Service (a division of the American Chemical Society), Altmetric, Elsevier, Impactstory, LabArchives, Plum Analytics, Springshare, SurveyMonkey, and Thomson Reuters.
I appreciate the significant sacrifices that my family has made in supporting me through my career. My parents and my sister provided me with a social environment that stimulated my interests in languages, history, literature, and philosophy. My daughter Vess has accepted the fact that my attention to her was always shared with preoccupation about my work or other interests. The biggest sacrifice was made by my husband Simeon, who has given me unselfish support throughout my whole career. As the first reader, honest critic, and careful copy editor of everything I was writing, he moderated my thoughts and prevented me from going to extremes in opinions and lengthy explanations.