EDITORIALIndexing the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies:The beginning, the ending, and the digital era

摘要

In 1984 I was a new graduate student in geology at PennState. I had been a caver and an NSS member for years,and I wanted to study karst. The only cave geology course Ihad taken was a 1-week event taught by Art Palmer atMammoth Cave. I knew that I had to familiarize myselfwith the literature in order to do my thesis, and that theNSS Bulletin was the major outlet for cave and karstrelated papers (Table 1). So, in order to "get up to speed" Iundertook to read every issue of the NSS Bulletin, from thepersonal library of my advisor, Will White, starting withvolume 1 (1940). When I got through volume 3, I realizedthat, although I was absorbing a lot of the material, itwould be difficult for me to relocate specific informationagain, because there was no comprehensive index avail-able'. So, I decided to create an index as I read. This wasthe beginning of a 25-year effort to catalog the literature ofthe NSS for use by the scientific community.