As scientists we should consider carefully the importance of language and its power to affect the way we are perceived. We can assure that what we do is conveyed precisely by taking steps to modify or eliminate words that fail to describe what we do accurately or that connote unwanted meanings.
We suggest that we all evaluate the terminology used in our everyday interactions with our collaborators. If you use the phrase fee for service, why not substitute cost recovery ? How about request for synthesis or analysis in place of order? These changes serve to underscore the fact that we do not operate with a profit margin, and they avoid the perception that we are businesses. Substituting collaborations in place of services and collaborators for users will help define us as laboratories engaged in more than routine efforts. Webster's Dictionary defines collaborate as "to work together, especially in some literary, artistic, or scientific undertaking". Is this not a better, more accurate term to use to describe the basis for our interactions with other researchers?
Consider the terms laboratory and facility . According to Britannica Online a laboratory is "a place equipped for experimental study in a science or for testing and analysis; broadly, a place providing opportunity for experimentation, observation, or practice in a field of study", while a facility is "the quality of being easily performed" or "ease in performance, aptitude". While the use of the word facility may not be wrong, it nevertheless contains connotations that do not accurately convey what core laboratories are about. The word laboratory , on the other hand, does not carry the sense that what we do is either easy or routine. We think this difference is important enough to ask the membership's assistance in petitioning the renaming of the Association from the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities to the Association of Biomolecular Resource Laboratories.
There will be occasions when using some of the words and phrases mentioned above is unavoidable, such as when meeting with granting agencies, administration, or accounting departments. However, we feel this usage should be avoided whenever possible, especially in our interactions with our collaborators.
We believe we are among a group of the best analytical and synthetic scientists in the world. Core laboratories have achieved an unmatched record of success in their ability to perform difficult syntheses and analyses successfully, often on the first attempt and under unfavorable conditions. Even with our straightforward work, we have brought expertise in state-of-the-art high technology within reach of virtually every laboratory. We owe it to ourselves to put it in our language.
Gary Hathaway, Karen De Jongh, Lowell Ericsson, Tim Hayes, John Hempel, and Kristine Swiderek
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