Frequently he locates a few reprints and consults the bibliographies therein. The Citation Index listings for these references, if available, would provide leads to information difficult to obtain by searching under established index headings. It was also shown how the Citation Index helps to overcome the problem of changing terminology, time, and the other inherent imitations of a priori indexing. The beauty of the citation index is that it achieves a posteriori indexing because a citation is experiential. Aristotelian logic has been a chain around the neck of the scientist and classifier alike.
Citations are permanent and unique, -as are the works they identify.
The significance of men s writings may change, but their identities are fixed. The dissemination and retrieval of information are inextricably linked. The abstracts section of CA is a device for dissemination while the index is for retrieval. An intriguing application of the Citation Index is its potential use in disseminating scientific information as well as for retrieval. Each scientist would then regularly receive papers in designated areas of interest.