Encyclopedia “
of
MICROBIOLOGY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Second Edition
Volume 1 A—C

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Editor-in-Chief
Joshua Lederberg

The Rockefeller University
New York, NY

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(AP)
 

 

 

Preface

The scientific literature at large is believed to dou-
ble about every 12 years. Though less than a decade
has elapsed since the initiation of the first edition of
this encyclopedia, it is a fair bet that the microbiology
literature has more than doubled in the interval,
though one might also say it has fissioned in the
interval, with parasitology, virology, infectious dis-
ease, and immunology assuming more and more in-
dependent stature as disciplines.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the en-
cyclopedias of classic and medieval times could be
expected to contain “a compendium of all available
knowledge.” There is still an expectation of the “es-
sence of all that is known.” With the exponential
growth and accumulation of scientific knowledge,
this has become an elusive goal, hardly one that
could be embraced in a mere two or three thousand
pages of text. The encyclopedia’s function has moved
to becoming the first word, the initial introduction
to knowledge of a comprehensive range of subjects,
with pointers on where to find more as may be
needed. One can hardly think of the last word, as
this is an ever-moving target at the cutting edge of
novel discovery, changing literally day by day.

For the renovation of an encyclopedia, these issues
have then entailed a number of pragmatic compro-
mises, designed to maximize its utility to an audience
of initial look-uppers over a range of coherently
linked interests. The core remains the biology of that
group of organisms we think of as microbes. Though
this constitutes a rather disparate set, crossing several
taxonomic kingdoms, the more important principle
is the unifying role of DNA and the genetic code and
the shared ensemble of primary pathways of gene

XXV

expression. Also shared is access to a “world wide
web” of genetic information through the traffic of
plasmids and other genetic elements right across the
taxa. It is pathognomonic that the American Society
for Microbiology has altered the name of Microbiolog-
ical Reviews to Microbiology and Molecular Biology
Reviews. At academic institutions, microbiology will
be practiced in any or all of a dozen different depart-
ments, and these may be located at schools of arts and
sciences, medicine, agriculture, engineering, marine
sciences, and others.

Much of human physiology, pathology, or genetics
is now practiced with cell culture, which involves a
methodology indistinguishable from microbiology:
it is hard to define a boundary that would demarcate
microbiology from cell biology. Nor do we spend
much energy on these niceties except when we have
the burden of deciding the scope of an enterprise
such as this one.

Probably more important has been the explosion
of the Internet and the online availability of many
sources of information. Whereas we spoke last de-
cade of CDs, now the focus is the Web, and the
anticipation is that we are not many years from the
general availability of the entire scientific literature
via this medium. The utility of the encyclopedia is
no longer so much “how do I begin to get information
on Topic X” as how to filter a surfeit of claimed
information with some degree of dependability. The
intervention of editors and of a peer-review process
(in selection of authors even more important than
in overseeing their papers) is the only foreseeable
solution. We have then sought in each article to
provide a digest of information with perspective and
Xxvi Preface

provided by responsible authors who can be proud
of, and will then strive to maintain, reputations for
knowledge and fairmindedness.

The further reach of more detailed information is
endless. When available, many specific topics are
elaborated in greater depth in the ASM (American
Society of Microbiology) reviews and in Annual Re-
view of Microbiology. These are indexed online. Med-
line, Biosis, and the Science Citation Index are fur-
ther online bibliographic resources, which can be
focused for the recovery of review articles.

The reputation of the authors and of the particular
journals can further aid readers’ assessments. Cita-
tion searches can be of further assistance in locating
critical discussions, the dialectic which is far more
important than “authority” in establishing authentic-
ity in science.

Then there are the open-ended resources of
the Web itself. It is not a fair test for recovery on
a specialized topic, but my favorite browser,
google.com, returned 15,000 hits for “microbiology”;
netscape.com gave 46,000; excite.com a few score
structured headings. These might be most useful in
identifying other Web sites with specialized re-
sources. Google’s 641 hits for “luminescent bacteria”
offer a more proximate indicator of the difficulty of
coping with the massive returns of unfiltered ver-

biage that this wonderful new medium affords: how
to extract the nuggets from the slag.

A great many academic libraries and departments
of microbiology have posted extensive considered
listings of secondary sources. One of my favorites is
maintained at San Diego State University:

http:/ibweb.sdsu.edu/scidiv/
microbiologyblr.html

I am sure I have not begun to tap all that would
be available.

The best strategy is a parallel attack: to use the
encyclopedia and the major review journals as a se-
cure starting point and then to try to filter Web-
worked material for the most up-to-date or disparate
detail. In many cases, direct enquiry to the experts,
until they saturate, may be the best (or last) recourse.
E-mail is best, and society or academic institutional
directories can be found online. Some listservers will |
entertain questions from outsiders, if the questions
are particularly difficult or challenging.

All publishers, Academic Press included, are up-
dating their policies and practices by the week as to
how they will integrate their traditional book offer-
ings with new media. Updated information on elec-
tronic editions of this and cognate encyclopedias can
be found by consulting www.academicpress.com/.

Joshua Lederberg