bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Some thesauric history
Authors: Sparck Jones Karen
Published: February 2008

An information retrieval thesaurus is a familiar object: it consists of a set of more or less controlled terms functioning as conceptual labels for sets of natural language entry words, with some indication of relations between terms in the form of references from terms to other BT's, NT's or RT's. Such an indexing language differs from a set of natural language keywords in involving vocabulary normalization; from a list of subject headings in being designed for post‐co‐ordination; and from a classification in having a limited structure.
Research and Aslib membership
Authors: Vichery B.C.
Published: February 2008

Aslib has had a Research and Development Department since 1959. It has received powerful financial support from the Office for Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) and from industry, because it is recognized that a continuing department, accumulating experience, and working in close contact with operational services, is the most favourable environment for the advance of information science. Aslib's subscription income now contributes substantially to the support of the department. With the right pressure and the right encouragement from the Aslib membership, the department will continue to justify the support it receives.
Other national resources in the social sciences
Authors: Humphreys K.W.
Published: February 2008

‘If no‐one questions me’, said St. Augustine in his Confessions, ‘I know, but if I am required to explain my point of view I do not know.’ I understand exactly what he means. When Maurice Line suggested that I should speak this evening I was confident and accepted, but when I began to consider what I should say and asked myself the questions, I realized that I did not know, and looking at the names of those who were also speaking I had to assure myself that I had been invited as a non‐expert, a non‐social scientist—but that was as far as I dared go or I should have argued myself out of existence rapidly.
Desiderata for national bibliographical services
Authors: Roberts N.
Published: February 2008

Whatever we desire for our future, national bibliographical services in the social sciences must, in some form, represent a reaction to, or from, our present bibliographical situation. Because prescriptions for the future are so dependent upon our understanding of the present it follows that, if our appreciation of the current scene is in any way deficient, then it is probable that our proposals for reshaping the future will be inappropriate, certainly; wasteful, probably; perhaps even harmful. The significance of a set of desiderata can only be understood in a current context; that is why desiderata should always be associated with their situational lineage, setting out the particular assessment of the existing state of bibliographical provision which gives rise to brighter visions of the world of bibliography. It is for this reason, despite the pressures of time, that I have chosen to preface these remarks on desiderata with a brief review of the present situation.
Information sources about the EEC in the United Kingdom
Authors: Mayes Ronald
Published: February 2008

Let me begin with a word about the scope of this paper. Although billed as talking about ‘Government and official sources’ of information I shall not try to be quite so comprehensive. Instead I shall concentrate on describing the types of information provided by the Department of Trade and Industry.
The place of professional education in higher education in the future
Authors: Thwaites Bryan
Published: February 2008

On taking office some years ago, an incoming Minister of Education was reported to have said to his senior civil servants something on these lines: ‘Never in the field of human conflict has it been more necessary than now to subjugate the universities to the needs of society and at the same time for the universities to retain their academic freedom. Gentlemen, go away and reconcile those two requirements.’ Well, of course, those two requirements are still not reconciled and for this morning's purposes I will put the dilemma in the form of a stark question: ‘What is higher education for?’, and by higher education I mean education after the age of about eighteen.
1. The PROGRAMME THAT EXISTS AND OMISSIONS
Authors: Brimelow T.
Published: February 2008

The system of education for information work and librarianship in this country has been essentially a pragmatic development. The cynic may say accidental or even chaotic and to some extent this is true, but it would also be unfair to the organizations and institutions involved. The development of education may appear to have been a gap‐filling exercise in that the various institutions have reviewed the scene from time to time and have provided educational services or courses of one kind or another not previously in existence. The build‐up of the system has therefore been subejcted to an informal consensus and co‐ordination.
FID'S STANDARD REFERENCE CODE PROJECT AND UDC IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME
Authors: Lloyd G.A.
Published: February 2008

It is always a pleasure to revisit the London scene, even if the occasion is a symposium where one is asked ‘to put the case for the FID's new policy for a Standard Reference Code’, as if one were Counsel for the Defence in the case of UDC versus SRC. The symposium title seems to reflect disquiet, if not panic, in certain UDC circles as to the FID's intentions, but it is quite misleading if it suggests that the FID, after long years of promoting the UDC, is about to abandon—or even relegate—the system in favour of some new‐fangled and insufficiently motivated substitute. It is true that the SRC project has received most of its impetus so far from the FID Central Classification Committee (CCC), which is virtually equated with UDC, and that the small SRC Group was set up by the CCC on the recommendation of the FID's independent UDC Advisory Panel, but this is because the other relevant FID committee—FID/CR (Classification Research)—is essentially a broad study committee, only very few of whose members could be expected to work on the project, however interested they may be. In the FID Classification Department itself, which is mainly responsible for UDC revision but very much concerned with all indexing languages and their use in libraries and other information transfer or exchange systems, we have long been sensitive to the criticisms directed against the UDC and most other general classifications, which have partly led to the proliferation of special classifications and thesauri, and we have followed closely the trends towards combined use of thesauri with UDC or other classifications, as well as the still vaguely expressed needs of such projects as UNISIST for some simpler sort of standard referral scheme as a ‘macro‐switching’ device. These considerations have convinced us that both an improved UDC and a simpler, more balanced SRC are needed by the information community, and that each can play its own distinctive role: the UDC for detailed subject retrieval in traditional libraries or documentation centres; the SRC as a simpler means for linking or switching between relatively broad subject‐fields in major information exchange systems, such as that envisaged by Unesco and ICSU in their UNISIST project.
Looking at libraries
Authors: Thomas P.A.
Published: February 2008

When I first joined Aslib I was asked how I felt about visiting different libraries and watching the people at work in them. The idea appealed to me, particularly as I had already found out how co‐operative librarians could be when working in a library myself, and beset by problems of re‐organization. Whatever the public image of librarians may be, the characteristics that have impressed me most are an absorbed interest in their work, and a willingness to talk about it. This helped me enormously, as my job has been to find out about their jobs. The librarians I have met through my work at Aslib have all been friendly and helpful, and interested enough in research to let me loose in their libraries in order to talk to their staff at some length about the various processes used.
The use of external current awareness services at Southampton University
Authors: Parker C.C.
Published: February 2008

First of all let me say a word about the background to this case study. When I arrived at Southampton over three years ago, there were about forty‐seven current awareness profiles in operation (Table 1).
Information flow and industrial innovation
Authors: Robertson Andrew
Published: February 2008

The SAPPHO Project (Scientific Activity Predictor from Patterns with Heuristic Origins) was launched in 1968, with a grant from the Science Research Council, as a study of success and failure in industrial innovation. Two facts are worth emphasizing in introducing the project briefly. The first is that it had been noted by a number of researchers that, in introducing new products and processes to the market, there is a high failure rate. It varies from 60 to 90 per cent, depending on the sector of industry and the nature of the market. The second fact is allied to this. Innovations appear to happen in clusters, very seldom in isolation. Thus, when the world market for a particular chemical expands and forces up its price, several firms in the industry will encourage research into cost reducing or quantity increasing processes. Of this group of innovating firms, one or two will succeed commercially with a process, others will succeed technologically but not commercially, and some will fail on both counts.
Variations on KWIC
Authors: Matthews F.W. , Shillingford A.D.
Published: February 2008

KWIC—Key Word In Context—is a form of automatic indexing using computers. It is automatic in the sense that the computer system determines the indexing from free text input. Luhn first described the method in which text of a length which can be accommodated on a single line of print is indexed at the centre of the page, the words that precede and follow the indexing keyword being displayed on the same line. As a control device a list of words for which no indexing entry should be made is stored in the computer program. This list, often referred to as a ‘stop list’, includes the articles, conjunctions and commonly occurring trivial words which do not form useful indexing entries. Less frequently occurring ‘useless’ entries are carried, but at little cost and with little damage to the usefulness of the index. The system is often referred to as quick and dirty: quick in that it is cheap to run, easy to prepare and not demanding of intellectual decisions at input; dirty in that useless entries will appear in the index, and, since the indexing vocabulary is uncontrolled, the user must consider alternative words that may express the concept for which he is searching. When the input is prepared in‐house a number of control features can be used to supplement the stop list to make the index more effective but requiring more thought at input. This paper concerns a number of such added control features.
A cost‐benefit study of a manually‐produced current awareness bulletin
Authors: Nightingale R.A.
Published: February 2008

In the current atmosphere of concern with costs, both of need to reduce expenditure and also to justify that which is being spent, it would seem to be a good idea to try to determine the cost‐benefits of some of the services offered by an information unit, a view expressed by Mr C. G. Giles at the 1972 Aslib Annual Conference. Kramer covered one aspect by estimating how much time non‐library staff spent on searching and comparing this with that spent by library staff. Unfortunately he was forced to rely on pure estimates, no actual tests being carried out. If, however, one looks at the current awareness bulletin aspect of a service it would seem possible to obtain a more exact measure by determining how many journals the staff themselves would need to scan if no current awareness bulletin were available. Accordingly, it was decided to try to obtain this information by means of a questionnaire survey of the readers of one of British Petroleum's technical information bulletins.
A Specialized Information Centre for high temperature processes
Authors: Brain Margaret E. , Livesey J.B. , Williams Alan
Published: February 2008

The High Temperature Processes Information Centre established within the Department of Fuel and Combustion Science at the University of Leeds is described in regard to its aims, functions, coverage and future activities. The High Temperature Bulletin and other facilities, which include a photocopying service and an information retrieval system, are also described.
Problems of storage and obsolescence
Authors: King John
Published: February 2008

The functions of a newspaper library. My brief in this programme is to talk of storage and to try to define obsolescence as applied to newspaper cuttings.
A bibliometric survey of primary and secondary information science literature
Authors: Dansey P.
Published: February 2008

A statistical analysis is made of the professional literature of librarians and information scientists in an attempt to uncover the patterns of information flow and to evaluate the abstracting services provided for information workers. Citation analysis of some English language information science journals throws light on the principal sources used by British and American information scientists and the linguistic and national biases in the citations given. The growth of the subject matter published in the field of information science is displayed. Five abstracting services are evaluated. Their scope in terms of the language, country of origin, subject matter and format of the material selected and abstracted is determined. Coverage is assessed in comparison with three bibliographies in this subject area. Currency is determined from NRLSI acquisition dates. Key journals are found from productivity analysis of the abstracted journals. Conclusions are drawn as to the adequacy of the present services and suggestions made for possible improvements.
The Scope for Operational Research in the Library and Information Field
Authors: Elton Martin , Vickery Brian
Published: February 2008

Operational research was born during the 1939–45 war as an aid to military decision making. After the war it was rapidly applied to industrial production, and many new techniques were developed. It has since spread to all spheres of policy making.
Adverse drug reaction reports; their storage and retrieval
Authors: Slater Michael R.
Published: February 2008

There is a statutory obligation for pharmaceutical companies to record reports of adverse reactions to their drugs. The storage and retrieval of these reports, within an operating post‐coordinate information retrieval system poses a number of problems due to their multidimensional nature. The use of links and roles to solve this problem is proscribed on economic grounds and so a system, currently being developed, is described using ‘generic role indicators’ as a primary device for preventing false drops followed by a rapid visual sort using an intermediate file on cards. Considerable time savings have been achieved by the unification of retrieval sources.
Fundamental problems of information transfer
Authors: Pearson A.W.
Published: February 2008

In the process of preparing a paper which would do justice to the chosen title one becomes very conscious of how difficult the subject with which we are dealing is, and how little we know and have actually measured about the way in which information is transferred, stored and subsequently utilized by individuals, groups and organizations.
The place of the information service within the organizational structure
Authors: Yates B.
Published: February 2008

I was asked to say something about the place of the information unit within the organizational structure and it was suggested that in making my contribution I should consider three particular areas: status, lines of communication between the information unit and other parts of the organization and relationship with management.
The information services provided by public libraries to industry and commerce
Authors: Smyth A.L.
Published: February 2008

This is very much a personal view of public library service to commerce and industry and does not attempt to give a considered survey of the position in the country as a whole. It is almost impossible to generalize for there seem to be almost as many policies as there are public library systems and the priority given to this service compared with all the other diverse services to the community which a public library is expected to give, varies from authority to authority. At one extreme there are those who appear to take the view that ratepayers' money should not be spent in contributing further profits to rich companies and, in any case, if such a service is required it is not the responsibility of local government. Other public libraries claim to give a service to commerce and industry but, in fact, make very little positive provision in the way of staffing and stock. Probably a minority of authorities are far‐sighted enough to appreciate that business enterprises pay a large share of the local rates and employ the majority of domestic ratepayers, and that money spent in providing this kind of service is a sound investment in the economic vitality of an area. The proportion of libraries appropriate to each of these three categories is difficult to assess but Dr Clements found that 4 public libraries out of 33 surveyed dealt with 56 per cent of the commercial and technical enquiries. Quality of service is not necessarily related to size of system and there are a few comparatively small libraries which maintain excellent co‐operation with local industry. Next year there will be a revolution in local government outside London and the number of library authorities will be reduced from 381 to 117. The elected representatives and most of the chief officers of these new authorities have now been chosen and will take office on 1st April 1974. New policies are already being discussed and if you feel dissatisfied with your present service, now is the time to act.
The 47th Aslib Annual Conference Summing up: The information service in practice
Authors: Line Maurice
Published: February 2008

What follows is an attempt to pull together the threads of what one person got out of the conference. Unavoidably, my selection of threads is a personal one, and in consequence my embroidery cannot pretend to objectivity. I am sure I shall have missed much that others will have found of interest and value.
The subject specialist librarian in an academic library: his role and place
Authors: Crossley Charles A.
Published: February 2008

The librarian's basic duty has always been to acquire, to organize and to exploit a collection of books and other sources of information. Concerning his ability to perform the first two tasks there has never been much doubt, but about the third responsibility he has either kept very quiet or done little—or both!—if we are to judge by the dictionary definitions attached to our profession. Emphasis on exploitation arrived with the twentieth century when closed access was swept away in the public library. It was not long before the merits of subject specialization became apparent to those who administered the public library, and subject departments were born in the days following the First World War. It took another World War before similar ideas had impact on the academic library world—witness the developments at University College, London, at the end of the 1940s, described by Scott—and only in the past twenty years have the results become apparent. And yet this is a strange situation, because the librarian of an academic library has traditionally been a subject specialist himself. As far back as the Renaissance, universities had learned librarians who were scholars in law, or literature or theology. This tradition has been carried on until the present century. Libraries in German universities in particular appear to have seen the need for the continuance of the scholar‐librarian, with their scheme of ‘Referenten’. In Britain, university libraries have remained faithful to the idea of the scholar‐librarian but it has not resulted in much ‘exploitation’ of the stock until recent years, with the emergence of the ‘subject specialist librarian’.
National official publications of Belgium
Authors: Vanwijngaerden Frans
Published: February 2008

When my director, Mr H. Liebaers, addressed the participants in the 37th IFLA General Council, held in Liverpool in 1971, he warned his audience to be very careful in using the words ‘developing countries’; words which have become so deeply rooted in the present‐day vocabulary of international relations that they cannot be avoided completely. The example of his own country, he said, would be enough to prove that even rich countries can be underdeveloped in library matters.
Review literature: characteristics, sources and output in 1972
Authors: Woodward A.M.
Published: February 2008

Within the context of providing an indexing service to the review literature in science and technology, reviews are defined and six types of review literature described. The sources of review literature are examined and an attempt made to estimate the current annual output of reviews in specialist review serials, primary journals, conference proceedings, books, reports and secondary services. The total output of ‘good’ quality reviews from these sources in 1972 is estimated to be 22,000. The characteristics of review literature are examined for the purposes of automatic identification; a method of identifying reviews by using the number of references was found to be between 75 and 85 per cent effective at the 40 references level.
The integrated publication system: a new concept in primary publication
Authors: Eakins J.P.
Published: February 2008

Conventional means of producing primary journals involve a number of problems, two of the most serious of which are publication delays and fragmentation of the literature into more and more specialized journals. Secondary publications are at best a palliative in this situation; significant advances can come only from a rethinking of the basic structure of the primary literature. An alternative to the conventional journal is the integrated publication system, in which original papers over a wide field can be accepted by a single agency, classified, and disseminated in a variety of forms to meet specialist needs. Such a system is the International Research Communications System, IRCS, which exists to publish short research communications in the biomedical field. Communications accepted for publication are made available to subscribers in a variety of forms, including a series of specialist journals, a selective general‐interest journal, a classified list of titles and a complete edition on microfilm. The advantages and disadvantages of such a system to authors and readers will be discussed, and its implications on the whole information‐transfer process considered.
Compiling and presenting information for maximum impact
Authors: O'Brien Turlough
Published: February 2008

To make the maximum impact, whether the object be to secure co‐operation or conversion, information must be compiled and presented with the answers to a number of questions in mind. To whom is the information directed? What do they want to know and what do the presenters of information want them to know? When are they most receptive to information and when are they most likely to act on it? Where can information be given especially if it is to be acted upon? Why is information wanted and why is it to be given? How is it to be given? Each medium has its strengths and its weaknesses. The choice will depend on the answers to the first four questions. Naturally enough the presentation and indeed the compilation of the information will vary from postmen to Parliamentarians and from executives to engineers. Each group will produce different answers to the five questions and on the answers will depend the presentation. If, for example, the information to be given is long it might be that the medium should be an exhibition or a leaflet. If on the other hand, emotion and drama becomes the main factor in the information then a film is undoubtedly the best medium. But whether the target groups are Parliamentarians or postmen they will want to have information which principally concerns either their constituency or the sorting of letters for their delivery.
Presenting search results to meet specific user needs
Authors: Bordiss P.J.
Published: February 2008

Users of information services need the technical content of documents rather than the documents themselves, and the results of a literature search should ideally be presented in such form that they can be readily assimilated and applied. The degree to which information can be pre‐processed is affected by various factors including the ratio of laboratory to information staff and the context of the enquiry. The traditional bibliography may not be the best way to meet a specific information requirement, and in any case is likely to be produced by computer to an increasing extent: continuous prose may render the content of the literature more accessible. For this purpose, computerized retrieval systems should be designed to permit a fairly high recall ratio, so that the information worker can carry out a final selection of material and treat it in the way most useful to the enquirer. Some examples are given to illustrate different methods of answering enquiries.
Some comments on the Information Broker and the Technological Gatekeeper
Authors: Wilkin Anne
Published: February 2008

Some librarians and information workers would suggest that although the name information broker is new, the services provided by the broker are no different from those they provide themselves. However, it has also been suggested that since the broker is a full‐time member of the user group she serves, taking part in its normal assignments and playing an important role in promoting the communication of information, her role has more in common with that of the technological gatekeeper. The relationship between the broker's role and other information‐handling roles is one of the issues Aslib R & D Department has considered during its 2‐year assessment of the post, and some findings of general interest are discussed in this paper. Since the broker's post was established by the users themselves, their reactions to the broker are of particular interest and are considered. Brief attention is also given to the problems the broker faces in balancing her information activities against her other duties.
Architects' wants and needs for information, demonstrated through a university‐based information service
Authors: Snow Christine
Published: February 2008

Architects' requirements for information, related both to their jobs and to the information itself, are little studied, as shown by the few user requirement surveys in this discipline. Goodey and Matthews, the Department of the Environment, the RIBA and others have described some of the habits and preferences of architects for information. These may be summarized as:
National Coal Board R&D information services
Authors: Conchie S. , Ramsbotham B.
Published: February 2008

The need for information and intelligence services has long been recognized. About 2,500 years ago an excellent service was supplied at Delphi. The Classical Dictionary attributes the success of this unit to ‘the efficient accumulation and use of information’, although Charles Seltman has recognized in the current awareness bulletins that have survived that the oracle experienced an all‐too‐familiar difficulty in distinguishing between ‘the trivially inexplicable and the cosmically ineffable’.
A list of resource material in Social Welfare
Authors: Social Sciences Group Aslib
Published: February 2008

The Aslib Social Sciences Group has been discussing the problems of information and library services in social welfare since early 1970, at first through ad hoc groups of varying size and composition (librarians, information officers, social work researchers, practitioners and academics) and later through a formal Working Group, reporting to the main committee.
Communication within the organization: organizational development, team making and informal meetings
Authors: Lumsdon C.A.
Published: February 2008

In this paper I hope to outline the reasons for the growth of the strategy known as organization development, describe some of the methods it uses and briefly review its current status. It is not intended to be an exploration in great depth—nor is it intended to be a sales pitch for consultancy work. Its intention is that readers shall be able to understand a little of the strategy and optimistically be able to see how they can take some of the methods outlined further in their own organizations. In order that we can get to grips with the subject, I shall only rarely acknowledge references and reduce the amount of jargon.
Structure and distribution of business information: some problem areas
Authors: Campbell Malcolm J.
Published: February 2008

First I should make clear that what I mean by ‘business information’ for the purpose of this paper excludes the technical and scientific information requirements of business and industry. Without attempting a full definition of the term, it is as well that I declare my concern to be with information which assists in the means of buying and selling of goods and services and the means—through the application of economics and management techniques—of their production, but not the technical processes involved therein. There is an area of overlap which has been called the techno‐commercial field, where for example the marketing men and the production men need to come together to establish what is technically feasible and permissible in respect of the sale of their goods in domestic and overseas markets. This is well recognized in the Science Reference Library which, for this reason, cannot be overlooked as a source of business information. But, except in smaller units in the company sector, and in some local authority libraries, the provision of business information is generally distinct from the scientific/technical, and separate staffs are involved.
Business information in France
Authors: Niewenglowska B.
Published: February 2008

It is no light matter to speak about the main sources of business information in France, but in the context of this meeting, that is what I am supposed to do.
Business information in the Netherlands and Belgium
Authors: Bloch G.
Published: February 2008

After Aslib kindly invited me to this conference I spent considerable time trying to take stock of what business information is available in Belgium and the Netherlands. Of course I did not uncover all possible sources myself (far from it) and I think therefore the title of my talk may be slightly misleading. Perhaps ‘The accessibility of business information in the low countries’ would give you a better idea of what I am going to talk about.
Introducing users to sources of information: the approach of the London Business School
Authors: Vernon K.D.C.
Published: February 2008

This is not a success story, it is an attempt to describe how our library staff have participated three times in a course for 1st year MSc students at the London Business School. Our participation in the course has been dependent, as always, on the attitudes and relationships between library staff, teachers and library users. Most of us here today understand something of the relationships which lie at the heart of the services we offer; perhaps I can best summarize them in this rather inane, basic Librarian v User situation:
A public right to know
Authors: Medawar Charles
Published: February 2008

I believe it is, or was, the case that libraries in the Republic of South Africa do not stock copies of Black Beauty; nor children's stories about little black rabbits and little white ones. Similarly, it is said to be impossible to get Darwin's Origin of the Species in the so called ‘Bible Belt’ region in the USA; and I have no doubt that it would be provocative—and also futile—to request a copy of, say, Animal Farm from the Lenin Library in Moscow.
Information for industry: the research associations' role
Authors: Payne A.R. , Cleaver S.
Published: February 2008

The nation is in one of its worse crises for a long time and for this reason I intend to take a broad view of the role that research associations can play in helping industry rather than dwell overmuch on methodology of communication. If the present crisis is to be solved it will have to be through the products of industry. Industry is changing and is itself changed by the world situation oil recession. The balance between developed and developing countries may be changing.
Techno‐commercial literature at the Science Reference Library
Authors: Thomson Martin J.
Published: February 2008

The Science Reference Library contains the largest and most comprehensive reference collection of the world's technological literature in this country. Like the corresponding loan collection of the British Library Lending Division at Boston Spa, this collection is of immense value to industry as a source of technical information, but it can also go much further than is generally realized towards satisfying industry's need for business information insofar as this can be labelled techno‐commercial.
Press cuttings and the social sciences
Authors: Mason C.M.
Published: February 2008

This paper reports the results of a pilot study of (a) the provision of press cuttings libraries and (b) use of press cuttings by social scientists. The study was undertaken for a Working Group convened in September 1975 by the British International Studies Association (BISA). (The Working Group included members of the BISA, the Political Studies Association, the Joint University Council for Social and Political Administration, the Association of University Teachers of Economics, the Association of Contemporary Historians, and also the press librarians at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.) Part of the study was carried out by the Aslib Consultancy Service. The project was financed by a grant from the Nuffield Foundation.
The INSPEC scheme as a library classification
Authors: Malley Ian
Published: February 2008

For some years there has been disenchantment with the traditional, general classification schemes, and many special schemes covering single disciplines have appeared. Not all of these have been developed with library classification in mind.
What the large users expect from secondary services producers
Authors: Haygarth Jackson A.R.
Published: February 2008

If you were a scholar at Merton College, Oxford, in mediaeval times, then for your BA degree you read the books down one side of the College Library and for your MA, the books on the other side. This was no mean task but those who accomplished it, had read virtually all the books that mattered. How different from today! The scholars of today suffer from the frustration described by the cliché ‘information explosion’. Both the providers of secondary services and information units work to cure this frustration. However, from the morass, some messages can be distilled.
Realization of staff potential
Authors: Layzell Ward Patricia
Published: February 2008

My brief is to discuss the realization of staff potential, and it seems to me to be essential to consider this question in relation to our current and likely future situation within library and information systems and their operational environment.
The role of scientific communication in the process of technological innovation
Authors: Ganz Carole
Published: February 2008

Currently inundating the United States is a variety of guidebooks to the future of information. Daniel Bell's, The Coming of the Post Industrial Society was preceded by Fritz Machlup's discussions of the ‘new society’ in the first edition of The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States. Other contributions which discuss the notion of the information or service‐based society to come include Edwin Parker, W. W. Rostow, Peter Drucker, and Ken Boulding. The argument here is that the scientific and technical information and communication industry is a small but significant part of the total knowledge sector economy which will certainly dominate the future of the developed world.
A comparison of issues and in‐library use of books
Authors: Harris C.
Published: February 2008

For a variety of reasons, librarians are continually obliged to examine the extent to which their bookstocks are used. This obligation may arise out of simple curiosity, to provide comparisons with other time periods or other institutions, or to measure the extent to which prescribed objectives are being reached. Increasingly, because space is limited and some means must be devised of selecting material for relegation to a less expensive form of storage or for withdrawal completely, the criterion set for relegation is usually one of use.
Librarians or academics? User education at Leicester Polytechnic
Authors: Bradfield Valerie J. , Houghton Beth , Siddall Patricia M.
Published: February 2008

Between 1972 and 1974 four ‘Academic Librarians’ were appointed to educate students in the use of resources. These were academic positions engaged in full‐time teaching and not responsible for library administration. The development of their role and of courses in Information Studies is discussed in the context of the problems which were encountered and the ways in which they have been solved. We have then attempted to gauge our achievements in relation to the aims originally envisaged.
Research into the practical results of on‐line information retrieval: an extensive analysis
Authors: de Jong‐Hofman M.W.
Published: February 2008

This paper describes the results of an extensive search into two factors which effect, to a high degree, the efficiency of on‐line information retrieval. These two factors are firstly the manner by which keywords are chosen as a means of retrieval by the reviewers of the reference work and secondly the degree with which papers with comparable contents are accorded similar keywords. The influence of these two factors on the practical results of on‐line retrieval is shown by the example of two extensive searches: these searches were done manually as well as on‐line. From these two methods it is then possible to compare what is retrieved by the computer and what is in reality available.
The British Library automated information service
Authors: Holmes P.L.
Published: February 2008

The British Library Automated Information Service (BLAISE) is a new name in the library and information world. It is in essence an on‐line library‐housekeeping and information service which is being created by the British Library based on established information retrieval software. The Library will use the ELHILL IHC software package which is run by the National Library of Medicine in the USA. BLAISE will provide on‐line access to the MEDLARS and the MARC files with access to the former in the spring of 1977 on an IBM 370 computer at a bureau in Harlow, Essex.
Information for Parliament
Authors: Poole J.B. , Gould Angela M.
Published: February 2008

Our joint theme is information for Parliament and you will be getting two papers for the price of one—which must be some sort of a bargain in these inflationary times. Our hope is that our separate contributions will complement each other to give the evening some completeness it might otherwise lack. I say only ‘some completeness’ because we in the Commons Library are all too aware that our part in the job of providing information for Parliament is but one part of a complex system.
Buying short‐run printing
Authors: Laird J.G.
Published: February 2008

There are probably as many definitions as there are print buyers, or printers, so we are not likely to agree on what we mean by short‐run printing. However, the fact that I have been asked to speak on the subject implies that buying short‐run printing is a problem, so let us define it as print runs which are so short that the printer does not want to do it.
The dissemination and preservation of information
Authors: Donaldson
Published: February 2008

Ours is an age of specialization. Indeed, if it were not, many of the achievements of the human race would simply not have come about. In most fields of human endeavour—science, technology, art, recreation—progress is made by the intelligent division of labour and by concentrating on doing a few things superlatively well. If the specialist is not the hero of our times, he is at least its symbol. He claims the privileges of the expert—that those who do not have his expertise should acknowledge it, accept it, and, within his field, subordinate their own judgment to his.
Merlin for the cataloguer
Authors: Hopkinson A.
Published: February 2008

MERLIN is the British Library's advanced computer system. A new MARC‐type format has been devised to take advantage of recent developments in computer technology. Records are split up into meaningful elements which are stored separately. Catalogue entries consist of a set of pointers pointing to the elements. MERLIN supports shared cataloguing but allows libraries to have their own private views of any element or group of elements. Standardization is easier to achieve as the structure of MERLIN is designed to make use of authority files. Automatic conversion is possible between the MERLIN format and existing formats.
EURONET training workshop 1976
Authors: Dunning Anthony J. , Schur Herbert
Published: February 2008

Three statements by Dr R K Appleyard, the Director‐General for Scientific and Technical Information and Information Management at the Commission of the European Communities, set the scene for the Workshop on training users of EURONET, held in Luxembourg on 13th–16th December 1976. ‘Western Europe has made, and continues to make, prolific contributions of human knowledge through discovery and invention. In fundamental scientific research and advanced technological development we are continuously accumulating knowledge and know‐how of vital importance for our long and medium term social economic prospects. In addition, the efficiency of our government and competitivity of our industries today depend, and will do so even more acutely in the future, on the acquisition and easy retrieval of “operational” information’. ‘The purpose of EURONET is to enable managers, administrators, researchers and educators, irrespective of their location relative to where the information they need is stored, to obtain it as cheaply as possible, in good time, and with minimum inconvenience’. And, ‘Why is training and education important in this context? The reason is simple: it is no use building EURONET if there are not going to be any users who can use it effectively …’.
Institutions and Learned Societies as information sources
Authors: Millson R.J.
Published: February 2008

Communication is the basis of the development of civilization, and advances in communication techniques are both a cause and an effect of developments in science and technology. Probably something similar also applies in the humanities, whereas the arts in themselves represent significant forms of communication. The Industrial Revolution was itself certainly expedited by developments in communication technology, and progress since has been similarly conditioned. The rate at which communications technology can be advanced both from the point of view of techniques and of related hardware will certainly constitute a major factor in the continuing progress of the so‐called developed countries and of the rate at which the developing countries progress. Such advances also impact directly on the standards of living of the communities concerned, but at the same time introduce increasing complexities into the everyday lives of the communities, their social structure and everyday work, and many, if not most, of the problems that arise in this complex social structure stem from failures of communication. An industrial dispute is certainly nothing more than a failure of communication between the parties concerned, and the speed with which differences can be settled is dependent, materially, on the speed and level at which communication can be re‐established. Of course the technology of communication is an important factor—such as the radio, telephone and written communication but these are only a concomitant to the realization that good communication means good human relations.
Industrial information resources
Authors: Wilkinson J.B.
Published: February 2008

Previous papers have discussed ‘public‐funded’ information resources. We should remind ourselves that public funds come from the economic resource of the country—and that comes from Industry and Commerce.
The Canadian mosaic—planning for shared partnership in a national network
Authors: Wright Gordon H.
Published: February 2008

Originally, I assumed my role at this meeting was to provide an observation on the Ontario library network. When I was asked to broaden this perspective to the Canadian scene, I was somewhat hesitant. I have neither the national position nor the national authority that Alphonso Trezza commands. Whilst I was relieved to discover that I was expected to consider ‘not what existed’ but ‘what was needed to be done’—the additional phrase ‘from the national point of view’, hardly encouraged an enthusiastic response. It merely confirmed my view that there are very few people who understand a Canadian's dilemma.
The readability of guides to the literature
Authors: Mayes P.B.
Published: February 2008

Readability is usually taken to mean the ease of comprehension of written materials and is expressed numerically. In this project, readability scores for eight guides to the literature were calculated using three readability methods. These were the Dale‐Chall, Flesch Reading Ease and Smog Grading methods. Correlation coefficients between the methods were calculated and they proved significant at the 5 per cent level. The effect of jargon words on the Dale‐Chall method is discussed.
The concept of ‘aboutness’ in subject indexing
Authors: Hutchins W.J.
Published: February 2008

The common view of the ‘aboutness’ of documents is that the index entries (or classifications) assigned to documents represent or indicate in some way the total contents of documents; indexing and classifying are seen as processes involving the ‘summarization’ of the texts of documents. In this paper an alternative concept of ‘aboutness’ is proposed based on an analysis of the linguistic organization of texts, which is felt to be more appropriate in many indexing environments (particularly in non‐specialized libraries and information services) and which has implications for the evaluation of the effectiveness of indexing systems.
Library Instruction Materials Bank
Authors: Malley Ian
Published: February 2008

A wide range of print and non‐print materials is associated with user education. The Library Instruction Materials Bank which has been set up at Loughborough, as part of the work of the British Library Information Officer for User Education, is an attempt to gather these materials and make them accessible to libraries and information services throughout the United Kingdom. It includes materials from all sectors of the library system, including university, polytechnic, college, school, public, national and special libraries.
Business information: a review of user difficulties
Authors: Collins Judith
Published: February 2008

The author presents the results of a dipstick questionnaire survey of the Aslib UK members which was designed to establish in which areas of business information provision, users perceived difficulties. Consideration is then given to the differentiation between difficulties on the part of the information seeker and difficulties inherent in the information being sought. It is suggested that the information seeker can be prone to three problems, (1) isolation, (2) the need to respond quickly and (3) lack of training.