The coverage of science in the thrid world : The "Philadelphia program"

Abstract

A year-long study was conducted by a selected group of interested people, culminating in a three-day workshop in Philadelphia in July 1985, exploring the extent to which the coverage of science in bibliornetric data bases is adequate, and what measures could be taken to eliminate the deficiencies in such coverage. The talk at the conference will summarize the main conclusions and recommendations of the final report of this effort. Since many of the recommendations can be implemented in a decentralized way, the aim of the presentation is to urge the individual members of the information science community to participate in this implementation. The recommendations are in five groups: I. Studies. 11. Steps requiring scientific consciousness raising but minimal resources. Ill. Steps requiring further organization but minimal resources. IV. Steps with small and catalytic costs. V. Steps with broadly distributed costs. They pertain to editorial practices, peer reviews, technological aspects of publication, bibliographic control of published material, as well as to a worldwide cooperative program to increase the number of scientific publications produced in the Third World which are included in the 151 data base.