MEMO FROM:                          TO: Eugene Garfield J. LEDERBERG Genetics Department Stanford University Stanford, California 5/9/59 Since you first published your scheme for a "citation index" in Science about 4 years ago, I have been thinking very sincerely about it, and must admit I am completely sold. In the nature of my work I have to spend a fair amount of effort in reading the literature of collateral fields and it is infuriating how often I have been stumped in trying to update a topic, where your scheme would have been just the solution! I am sure your critics have simply not grasped the idea, and especially the point that the author must have to cooperate by his own choice of citations and then he does the critical work. Have you tried to set this out in an adequate experiment? Would you look for support from the NSF? Of course you have to count on opposition from the established outfits, which have already succeeded in blocking any progressive centralization of the Augean tasks. Sincerely, Joshua Lederberg