Eugene Garfield
Eugene Garfield | |
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Born | Eugene Eli Garfinkle[1] September 16, 1925 |
Died | February 26, 2017[2] Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | (aged 91)
Alma mater | |
Known for |
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Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Thesis | An algorithm for translating chemical names to molecular formulas (1961) |
Website | Archived: Garfield Library |
Eugene Eli Garfield (September 16, 1925 – February 26, 2017)
Early life and education
Garfield was born in 1925 in New York City as Eugene Eli Garfinkle,
Career and research
Working as a laboratory assistant at Columbia University after his graduation, Garfield indexed all previously synthesized compounds so that not to remake them, which helped him understand that his inclination to information towards science was bigger than towards chemistry.
In 1951, he got a position at the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, where most of the National Library of Medicine information systems were developed. There he built search and cataloging system methods using punch-cards. In 1953, at the First Symposium on Machine Methods in Scientific Documentation, Garfield got introduced to Shepard's Citations.[11]
In 1956, Garfield founded the
Garfield was responsible for many innovative bibliographic products, including
Following ideas inspired by
His entrepreneurial flair in having turned what was, at least at the time, an obscure and specialist metric into a highly profitable business has been noted.[23]
Garfield's work led to the development of several information retrieval algorithms, like the HITS algorithm and PageRank. Both use the structured citation between websites through hyperlinks. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin acknowledged Gene in their development of PageRank, the algorithm that powers their company's search engine.[23] Garfield published over 1,000 essays.
Honors and awards
Garfield was honored with the Award of Merit from the Association for Information Science and Technology in 1975.
He was awarded the John Price Wetherill Medal in 1984,[16] the Derek de Solla Price Memorial Medal in 1984,[24] and the Miles Conrad Award in 1985.[25] He was also awarded the Richard J. Bolte Sr. Award in 2007.[26] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society that same year.[27]
The Association for Library and Information Science Education has a fund for doctoral research through an award named after Garfield.
Criticism
Writing in Physiology News, No. 69, Winter 2007, David Colquhoun of the Department of Pharmacology, University College London, described the "impact factor," a method for comparing scholarly journals, as "the invention of Eugene Garfield, a man who has done enormous harm to true science." Colquhoun ridiculed C. Hoeffel's assertion that Garfield's impact factor "has the advantage of already being in existence and is, therefore, a good technique for scientific evaluation" by saying, "you can't get much dumber than that. It is a 'good technique' because it is already in existence? There is something better. Read the papers."
Personal life
Garfield is survived by a wife, three sons, a daughter, two granddaughters, and two great-grandchildren.[2][16][28]
References
- ^ ProQuest 302077490.
- ^ a b c d "Scientometrics Pioneer Eugene Garfield Dies". The Scientist. February 27, 2017. Archived from the original on February 28, 2017.
- ^ "Founding Father of Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science, Dr. Eugene Garfield Dies at 91". PR Newswire. February 27, 2017. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
- ^ Garfield, Eugene, Blaise Cronin, and Helen Barsky Atkins.The Web of Knowledge: A Festschrift in Honor of Eugene Garfield. Medford, N.J.: Information Today, 2000.
- S2CID 5902162. The concept of the Science Citation Index is first articulated.
- ^ Garfield, Eugene (September 16, 2005). The Agony and the Ecstasy—The History and Meaning of the Journal Impact Factor (PDF). International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication. Chicago. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
- ^ "History of Citation Indexing" (Available online). Web of Science Group. October 15, 2010. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
Dr. Eugene Garfield, founder and now Chairman Emeritus of ISI® (now Thomson Reuters), was deeply involved in the research relating to machine generated indexes in the mid-1950s and early 1960s
- ^ "Fifty Years of Citation Indexing and Analysis". October 6, 2010. Archived from the original (Available online) on May 14, 2013. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
Fifty years ago, on July 15, 1955, Eugene Garfield, Ph.D published his groundbreaking paper on citation indexing, "Citation Indexes for Science: A New Dimension in Documentation through Association of Ideas." This innovative paper envisioned information tools that allow researchers to expedite their research process, evaluate the impact of their work, spot scientific trends, and trace the history of modern scientific thoughts.
- ^ "Deeds and Dreams of Eugene Garfield" (PDF). University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on November 17, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2013.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ISBN 9780838906095. Retrieved October 14, 2013.
- ^ PMID 28332532.
- ^ "Eugene Garfield Biography". infoplease.com.
- ^ Elmes, John (2017). "Citation analytics pioneer Eugene Garfield dies, aged 91". Times Higher Education. London. Archived from the original on March 2, 2017.
- ISBN 1-57387-099-4.
- S2CID 14214942.
- ^ Chemical Heritage Foundation.
- ^ "Acquisition of the Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Science Business by Onex and Baring Asia Completed". clarivate.com. Archived from the original on July 3, 2017. Retrieved March 2, 2017.
- ^ "Thomson Corporation acquired ISI". Online. July 1992. Archived from the original on May 15, 2013. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
- S2CID 5902162.
- S2CID 31183037.
- ^ Buranyi, Stephen (June 27, 2017). "Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?". The Guardian. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
- ^ Goodall, Amanda; Oswald, Andrew (October 9, 2014). "Do the social sciences need a shake-up?". THE World University Rankings. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
- ^ a b Gallagher, Richard (2017). "Eugene Garfield – 1925–2017 – a life of impact". annualreviewsnews.org. Archived from the original on February 28, 2017.
- ^ "Derek de Solla Price Memorial Medal".
- ^ "Miles Conrad Award and Lectures | NISO website".
- ^ "Richard J. Bolte Sr. Award for Supporting Industries". Science History Institute. May 31, 2016. Retrieved February 6, 2018.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved May 14, 2021.
- ^ "Eugene Garfield tells his life story (video)". webofstories.com.
External links
- Center for Oral History. "Eugene Garfield". Science History Institute.
- Williams, Robert V. (July 29, 1997). Eugene Garfield, Transcript of an Interview Conducted by Robert V. Williams at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 29 July 1997 (PDF). Philadelphia, PA: )
- Garfield, Eugene (1962–1993). Essays of an Information Scientist vol. 1–15 (open access). ISI Press.