Eugene Garfield and his ideas, writings, and accomplishments: Impact on science, scientists, and politics

Abstract

When Eugene Garfield created the Science Citation Index, he could not have foreseen the dramatic impact his brilliant ideas would have on science and scientists in decades to come. As founder of the Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia, he laid the foundations for creating valuable information products such as Index Chemicus, Current Chemical Reactions, Current Contents, Web of Science, Essential Science Indicators, and Journal Citation Reports. His weekly essays, published for many years in the Current Contents, touched on themes of enormous interest to a broad audience of scientists, academic administrators, and even politicians. In his 80s now, Dr. Garfield continues to create new information tools, his latest accomplishment being HistCite - a program that allows users to perform sophisticated analysis of the scientific literature and the publication behavior of scientists. This paper discusses how Dr. Garfieled's ideas have influenced the development of science, the life of scientists, and even...the (international) political discourse.