Eugene Garfield Obituary: Scientometrics Pioneer | The Scientist Magazine®

Eugene Garfield Obituary: Scientometrics Pioneer | The Scientist Magazine®: Eugene Garfield, founder of the Institute for Scientific Information and The Scientist, has passed away at age 91.

The only evidence of the once imposing wall of volumes -
our neglected shelf list card for Science Citation Index.

I was sorry to read the news today of Dr. Garfield's passing.  It was an honor to meet Eugene Garfield when I was invited to participate in a users group forum at the Institute for Scientific Information in the mid-1980s.  He was very kind and welcoming, and surprised us with his self-deprecating humor in the face of our deference to his superior knowledge of citation metrics.  It seems like a life-time ago (and for the current generation of undergraduates, it is more than a life-time) that the science faculty here routed the library's copies of Current Contents, issued weekly, around each department as a way of keeping abreast of new research.  Likewise, the print volumes of Science Citation Index hit the recycling bin ages ago - perhaps directly to a landfill, in the pre-recycling era - and Web of Science competes mightily with Google Scholar and other databases for the same reliance from today's students as once shown by faculty to Current Contents.  Dr. Garfield's legacy is still very evident, even as formats and use patterns evolve.