the author was prompted to examine the evidence for the existence of A.I. Mikhailov, the legendary and apparently near-ubiquitous Soviet information scientist. At first glance this might seem unwarranted and gratuitous. After all, the appearance of Mikhailov, or at least his name, in the program was a fixture of international library and information science conferences for years, even decades. However, the actual appearance of Mikhailov at those conferences has been exceedingly, indeed it would appear vanishingly, small…
So writes Michael E.D. Koenig. the author of the classic — but too little-known — article “On the Existence of Mikhailov.”
The article originally appeared in 1993, in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science. The author and the publisher kindly granted us permission to reprint it in the Annals of Improbable Research, where it appears in volume 10, number 2. Read the article here.
BONUS: The skimpy Wikipedia entry on Mikhailov