The book contains all the theoretical and mathematical background for the ISM process. It remains in use as the major source for persons wishing to develop software for Interpretive Structural Modeling.
Availability: As noted below, an updated new edition is planned by Ajar Publishing. Please contact Ajar Publishing for current information on this.
The book is available from Fenwick Library, George Mason University, and from Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. , Call Number H61.W3737; LCCN for the 1976 edition: 76-25908; ISBN for the 1976 edition: 0-471-01569-5; LCCN for the 1989 Intersystems reprint: 76-25908 r92; ISBN for the 1989 Intersystems reprint: 0914105-49-1; Catalog number for Univ Microfilms reprint: 2120 AU0045
The Warfield Special Collection at Fenwick Library, BOX 27 FOLDER 12 holds a file copy of the hard-cover book shipped to GMU in 2000. Other folders in Box 27 hold related Societal Systems documents.
There is at last a digitized version file of not quite an entire book, which we are carefully saving until next phase. The filename is: "Societal Systems John N. Warfield.pdf" (date Feb 2014) More later. R,W, 2/14/14.. Here is more: Dan Warfield got an edited version completed scanned by March 2014 with the missing pages added and the corrections, and it is the copy he hopes to print and publish as the REPRINT. The filename is: "2014-03-09 Societal Systems" John N. Warfield-edited.
Effective 18 November 1993 Warfield contracted with a Bell & Howell subsidiary, University Microfilms, Inc., to include Societal Systems in BOOKS ON DEMAND, granting University Microfilms the “non-exclusive right to produce, promote and sell copies of the work.” The Books on Demand order number is AU00445. Since 1993, the company University Microfilms has become ProQuest, 789 E. Eisenhower Parkway, P.O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346, Phone: 1.734.761.4700 University Microfilms was charging about $140.00 for a paperback copy, so they didn't sell many. The company still has the right to reprint and sell, as far as I know, it is a non-exclusive right, but is binding on "successors and assigns of the parties" meaning they can go on offering reprints forever, probably.
A soft-cover reprint was published in 1989 by Intersystems. The 1989 version has a corrected page 231, to replace original page 231 which was found several years after publication to have a small math error. Copies of the reprinted softcover edition are in the IASIS File cabinets at David Acker Library, Defense Systems Management College, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and at the Institute Library at ITESM (Instituto Tecnologico) in Monterrey, Mexico. (This book has been translated into Chinese in a publication issued in 1993, Wuhan, China. However the Chinese version is not the full text; several portions of the English text were left untranslated and not printed in the Chinese version. The Chinese version of the book is in Fenwick Library Warfield Special Collection Box 50, Folder 28). This book is not on disk.
However, beginning in the summer of 1997, and continuing into 1998 and maybe longer, as he has time, WARFIELD IS RETYPING THE MATHEMATICS OF MODELING SECTIONS OF THIS BOOK, TRANSFERRING Chapters 8-14 onto Computer files. The computer files holding these re-typed chapters are collected together in the folder Mathematics of Structure. It would be more convenient to use a scanner, but the format and math notations are too complicated for our scanner. COPYRIGHT TO SOCIETAL SYSTEMS Societal Systems, by J. N. Warfield was originally copyrighted in 1976 by John Wiley & Sons. After the book became out of print John Warfield bought all of the remaining copies from the publisher and sold them one by one until they were all gone. Also on 27 May 1988, at John’s request, Wiley & Sons granted the copyright to Warfield. Warfield got a reprint issued in 1989, by Intersystems publishers. It was a paperback, and was a photocopy of the original except for one page which contained some corrections. This issue too is now out of print.
Copyright note: The copyright on Societal Systems expired in November 2004. According to the Sonny Bono law, the copyright could have been renewed for another 47 years for a total of 75 years but John Warfield chose not to renew this copyright when he could have done so. Rose had known about the copyright situation and kept track of the time when Warfield should renew. Also we received mailing from Wiley & Sons informing us of the 1988 Sonny Bono law and the need to renew. At that time, Warfield’s decision was: “No, don’t renew the copyright.” His remarks were something to the effect that 28 years is long enough for an author to hold on to a copyright. He felt that books should be in the public domain so they can be available to anyone who wants them and that keeping the copyright would simply prevent that from happening. So Rose Warfield never did send in any application to renew the Societal Systems copyright. However, it seems there was a 1992 law which provides for AUTOMATIC renewal of copyright for any book published AFTER 1964. So it seems that John’s copyright was automatically renewed in 1992 without him being aware of it. This means that in 2004 when it would have expired, it actually did not expire. I think. But I am not sure about this. It could be that because Warfield did not renew his copyright in 2004 that the 1992 law did not apply to him and he would still be under the 1988 law, by which his copyright was expired in 2004.