The March 27, 2009 edition of Science explores the issue of personal identification numbers for scientists. Why? Because it’s getting difficult to tell authors apart.
A universal numbering system could aid scientists trying to stay on top of the literature, help universities more readily track staff productivity, and enable funding agencies to better monitor the bang they’re getting for their buck. An effective identification number might also make it easier to find information about an author’s affiliations, collaborators, interests, or simply their current whereabouts.
This article indicates that published scientific papers are growing in quantity by 3% annually. Many authors are getting married or divorced and therefore changing their names. Some journals have varying style rules for noting first names and initials. Chinese authors often transliterate their names using opinion. “At least 20 different Chinese names, many of them common, are transliterated as “Wang Hong.” And, of course, there are many scientists not of Chinese descent who have common names who don’t want to be confused with others.
The article goes on to discuss various approaches for a assigning unique numbers to researchers. Who would control the system and how would it be enforced such that it would be accurate and fair? I assume that there are many scientists named John Smith who would like to know.
When I was 18, I changed my name, which was previously Richard Vincent Vieth, Jr. (I was named after my father). When mail came to me, I wanted to know for sure who it was for. I also wanted to get rid of the “Junior” which I thought to be pretentious. By the time I was 18, I had decided that I wanted my own name so that there would not be confusion (I changed my name in a court proceeding). As a teenager, I wondered why, with all the names out there, parents would name their kids after themselves. I do understand the motivations, but I have also very much enjoyed having a name that is almost unique in United States. Our personal level, then, I do see the value in having unique identifiers for people trying to communicate a complex world.
I don’t want to sound naive. I realize the privacy concerns at stake were everyone to have a number with which someone else could quickly delve into their private affairs. This has led to much discussion about the extent to which social security numbers should be used as universal identifiers, for example. In this climate dominated by privacy concerns, it was a good counter-balance to read of the value of assigning unique identifiers, at least for the limited use of specifying authorship.
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