Professional societies in general are designed to support and raise the prestige of the professions they represent, and the most overt way in which they do this is by attempting to keep the level of information concerning their profession as high as possible.

Traditionally, the predominant type of transfer of information has been scientific papers presented at meetings for the memebership, and this it still so in many cases. The large amount of information communication in this way, and its significance, is beyoned doubt.