Created by cartoonist , Garfield debuted on June 19, 1978. The orange tabby, named after Davis's grandfather, James Garfield Davis, quickly became a global phenomenon.
: Garfield is defined by his relatable distastes—Mondays, diets, and mornings—and his unapologetic loves, primarily lasagna and sleeping. garfield
Whether through the lens of a sarcastic feline or the data-driven world of scientometrics, "Garfield" represents a mastery of information—be it the relatable data of daily life or the complex network of human discovery. Eugene Garfield and the Algorithmic Historiography Created by cartoonist , Garfield debuted on June 19, 1978
: Garfield founded the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and launched the Science Citation Index (SCI) in 1964. This was the first systematic attempt to map how scientific papers reference one another. Whether through the lens of a sarcastic feline
: He introduced the Journal Impact Factor (IF) , a metric originally intended to help librarians select journals, which has since become a standard—and sometimes controversial—measure of academic prestige.
: Later in his career, he developed tools like HistCite to visualize the chronological development of scientific fields, allowing researchers to "map" the history of ideas. Comparative Influence Garfield the Cat Eugene Garfield (Scientist) Origin Created by Jim Davis (1978) Founder of ISI Key Innovation "Lazy" philosophy & lasagna Citation Indexing & Impact Factor Global Reach Over 2,000 newspapers Foundation of the Web of Science Core Audience General public/comic readers Researchers and academics