TABLE 16.-Regular postdoctoral awards offered by field-March and April 1958

C. SENIOR POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS

Senior postdoctoral fellowships are awarded to scientists of demonstrated ability and special aptitude for productive scholarship in the sciences. Awards provide opportunity for highly specialized study and research during a period of leave. The program is kept highly flexible in nature so that it can be adjusted to the individual needs of the fellow. There is a single award period each year. from 3 months to 2 years are available.

Stipends and allowances

Tenures of

Stipends are computed so as to make available approximately the same income as that derived from the fellow's normal salary. No stipend is less than $4,500 per annum before adjustment for supplemental income. No basic stipend exceeds $12,000 per annum and no award after adjustment is less than $2,000 per annum, including allowances. In addition to stipends, limited allowances are provided for travel, tuition, and fees, and certain research expenses. In fiscal year 1958 this program was in its third year of operation. Statistical details concerning awards given in the life sciences are shown in table 17.

TABLE 17.-Senior postdoctoral applicants and awards offered by field

D. SCIENCE FACULTY FELLOWSHIPS

This program was designed particularly for the many college teachers of science, mathematics, and engineering who were drawn into teaching after receiving only a nominal amount of postbaccalaureate training, as well as for those who have been teaching for a long time with but little opportunity for "refresher training" in their fields of specialization. Tenures of from 3 to 15 months are available. Stipends and allowances

Stipends are individually computed to provide approximately the same income as the normal salary. The award is adjusted so that the combined support from the Foundation's award and other comparable sources will not exceed $12,000 per annum. A minimum award of $2,000 per annum (including allowances) is provided by the Foundation regardless of other support and in all cases science faculty fellows will be assured an income of not less than $4,500 per annum. Allowances include tuition and fees, travel, and special program

expenses.

This is the second year of awards in the science faculty program. Statistical details concerning awards given in the life sciences are shown in table 18.

TABLE 18.-Science faculty applicants and awards offered by field

Part 7

SCIENCE INFORMATION SERVICE

The Foundation, through its Science Information Service, fosters cooperation and coordination of scientific information activities among agencies of the Federal Government and among non-Government organizations engaged in activities in this field. A major goal of the Service is to insure the ready availability to all U.S. scientists of the world's current and past output of significant scientific information. Its four major programs during fiscal year 1958 continued to be concerned with research in the scientific information field, with the support of scientific publications, with the unpublished results of Government-sponsored and other research, and with foreign scientific information. In fiscal year 1958, the Service also conducted exhibit programs associated with this Nation's participation in the Brussels World's Fair and in the International Geophysical Year.

Information programs dealing with the life sciences that were supported by the Foundation during fiscal year 1958 are described below.

A. SUPPORT OF SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

As in the past, the Foundation granted temporary, emergency support to valuable research journals facing financial or other crises. Funds were granted to the Journal of Parasitology to enable it to prepare and publish cumulative indexes, covering 25 years of the research papers published in this journal.

Support was also given to help defray the publication costs of significant monographs which could not be published without such aid. In the past year support of this kind made possible the publication of a World Monograph on the Fontinalaceae and a Manual of Marine Algae of Tropical Eastern America. Both of these monumental taxonomic works are the culmination of many years of research, and are expected to become indispensable aids to other workers in these fields.

B. DATA AND REFERENCE CENTERS

The Foundation again joined with other Federal agencies to support the Biosciences Information Exchange, which collects information on current research projects in the biological sciences, organizes and classifies this information, and makes it available upon request.

C. STUDIES

Several studies were undertaken, under grants from this program, of problems connected with publishing and disseminating scientific information. Among these was a survey, by Biological Abstracts, of the coverage of botanical literature by abstracting services.

Support was given to the Conference of Biological Editors for the preparation of a style manual for biological publications, which will

establish standards in such matters as literature citations, terminology, abbreviations, and preparation of illustrations. These standards will be arrived at by agreements among biological editors, and it is expected that most biological journals will adhere to them after the manual is published, thus establishing badly needed consistency and saving considerable time and effort of both editors and authors.

D. FOREIGN SCIENCE INFORMATION

The basic goal of the Foreign Science Information (FSI) program is the widest possible dissemination in the United States of the published results of foreign scientific research. To date it has been necessary to limit work toward this goal almost exclusively to Russian scientific literature, with principal emphasis being placed on the translation phase of the program. Major FSI activities in the life sciences during fiscal year 1958 were the following:

1. Midwest Interlibrary Center, Chicago

Continuing support was given to the Midwest Interlibrary Center (MILC)-a cooperative endeavor of 19 major middle western universities for its program of building a comprehensive (ideally, a complete) collection of foreign chemical and biological serial publications. The fiscal year 1958 NSF grant maintained MILC's subscriptions to the 800 journals acquired during the previous year and permitted the addition of 1,000 in chemistry and 500 in biology. When present gaps are filled, the MILC holdings will make 9,500 of the world's most significant serials in these two fields available to U.S. scientists. 2. Special Libraries Association

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) Translation Center at the John Crerar Library in Chicago, jointly supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, expanded its holdings of scientific translations from all languages to 20,000 during the fiscal year. Translations are deposited in the center by Government agencies, technical societies, universities, and industries at the rate of approximately 500 per month. The translations received are now announced in the publication, Technical Translations, which is available on subscription from the Government Printing Office.

3. Russian translations

Grants were made for the translation of four important Russian scientific monographs in the field of biology. The titles and publishers

are:

Breslavets, L. P. "X-Rays and Plants" American Institute of Biological Sciences.

Gause, G. F. "Problems in the Classification of Antagonists of Actinomycetes." American Institute of Biological Sciences. Pomerantzev, B. I. "Arachnida," vol. IV, No. 2, "Fauna of the U.S.S.R." American Institute of Biological Sciences.

Zachvatkin, A. A. "Arachnoidea," vol. VI, No. 1, "Fauna of the U.S.S.R." American Institute of Biological Sciences.