Subject-Indexes to the Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers

Abstract

As you have opened your columns to Mr. Garnett's valuable paper on “Subject-Indexes to Transactions of Learned Societies,” you will perhaps allow me to make a suggestion in regard to the proposal contained in it. The initial objection to Mr. Garnett's scheme appears to me to be that the work he suggests will really be as large as the original catalogue, and, in fact, the same work in a new order. Even were it possible to get the money (probably little short of 10,000l.), the question would naturally arise whether or no the result was likely to be worth this great outlay. Moreover, the plan proposed by Mr. Garnett would not meet the great difficulty of compilation, which consists in the getting together of papers treating of identical subjects, but written with various titles by different persons. This would make it necessary to employ experts in each subject, and also a general practical editor for the whole, under whose eye all entries must pass. I cannot help thinking, therefore, with Mr. J. B. Bailey (p. 580), that the titles of the papers would have to be generally ignored.