High Yields on an Expensive Investment in Science Journals: Career Histories of Known Undergraduate Users Ten Years Later

Many librarians at small colleges feel that the high cost of science journals represents a disproportionate part of the budget given the small number of users typically found today. This is a short-sighted, inappropriate application of popularity-based thinking. The minority that use science journals may in fact, be critically important for the technological and medical future of the majority. A group of 470 students clearly involved with scientific journals as coauthors in the mid to late 1970s is shown to have contained a high number of exceptionally promising scientists and physicians. Access to a good assortment of science journals was a part of the process that set them on their way to success, and making such access possible must remain our commitment to future generations of scientists.