Scientific communications are appearing at the rate of one-half million a year at the present time, with a prediction of doubling this quantity every 15 years. This volume has demanded much discussion of new techniques and design of new equipment for recording information and for producing it immediately upon demand.
That there is more than "discussion," in fact, tangible progress in recording and retrieving scientific information, was demonstrated early this year by the publication of a new semimonthly, computer-driven, recurrent bibliography called Index of Rheumatology and issued by the American Rheumatism Association in cooperation with the National Library of Medicine.
This is the first of what may become a series of medical bibliographies produced by the National Library of Medicine for specialty groups. The Index of Rheumatology constitutes a successful pioneer experiment as regards speed and comprehensiveness of information retrieval. The first issue cites 178 communications and has an author's