Distill or drown: The need for reviews

BY NOW THERE can hardly be a physicist who has not been jolted by the challenge of the information explosion. Some men have been so overcome that they have given up subscribing to The Physical Review for lack of shelf space. The widespread concern about this challenge has been reflected in a number of recent articles in PHYSICS TODAY and in similar discussions in magazines of other fields and other countries. Among the great bulk of physicists diverse attitudes prevail: Some remain happy in a speciality narrow enough so that they can feel “in the swim” if they keep in touch with a few colleagues and read a highly specialized journal; others rationalize with the comment that most of the literature is garbage anyway; a few pin their hopes on the vast improvements being made by their documentalist colleagues in the science of indexing and retrieval.