Two black and white photographs depicting from left to right The Scientist’s general manager, Roland "Rolly" Holub, Stanley Cohen (1922-2020), and Eugene Garfield (1925-2017). The men laugh as they celebrate the publication of the first issue of The Scientist in Nashville, Tennesee. The monthly publication sought to report news of interest to the scientific community. According to Garfield, “As I see it, there is a need for a publication that supplies news about the economics and financing of science, as well as science policy, regulatory issues, and the ethical debates of science. Also needed is more coverage of personalities, as well as news about research grants, forthcoming meetings, awards, and all the other minutiae that make up the lives of working scientists...” The publication was sold several times since its genesis but is still in publication today. Now, the periodical, which is owned and operated by the LabX Media Group, primarily functions as a professional magazine for life scientists.

Eugene Garfield was a prominent American information scientist and pioneer in the field of scientometrics. He was the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), a renowned academic publishing service that offered scientometric and bibliographic database services and specialized in citation index and analysis. Garfield was also the inventor of the Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Current Contents, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. These inventions provided an objective and quantitative basis for analyzing information flow in scientific communication and fostered the growth of the field of scientometrics.