Indexing Plans of Chemical Abstracts: Collective subject indexes may have to be issued quinquennially instead of decennially some day soon, as size and practicable distribution are becoming a problem

FOR every 1,000 words published annually by Chemical Abstracts in the form of abstracts 670 words are n ow published in the form of indexes. The index words, which express still more concentrated chemical information than do the abstracts, are at least as difficult to provide properly. In the making of this calculation all kinds of indexes published have been taken into consideration. When a regular number of Chemical Abstracts is off the press arid on the editor's desk the work of his staff on this number is only about half completed. The indexing remains to be done and this calls for a lot of careful, proficient work. The 1949 annual indexes will go over 2,000 pages. The Fourth Decennial Index, just completed, contains 9,927 pages (10,000 pages was the prediction). Since fine print and solid composition (no leads) are used on these large index pages they are the equivalent of 3.5 average textbook pages ...