bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
PROGRESS In REVISION OF The UDC 621.3 TABLES
Authors: BECK G.N.J.
Published: February 2008

Although this talk is to be devoted to the Electrical Engineering section 621.3 of the Universal Decimal Classification as a whole, in view of your primary interest in the field of electronics, I shall try to place, where possible, more emphasis on this aspect of the subject. I am assuming that the general structure and method of using the UDC will be familiar to the majority of you, so I shall not elaborate upon this.
ASLIB EXHIBITION OF PHOTOCOPYING EQUIPMENT
Authors: PATERSON G.M.
Published: February 2008

This exhibition was held at Aslib from 1st September to 30th November 1959 and was attended by approximately 150 individual visitors from 100 organizations, forming a representative cross‐section of Aslib's membership. Some visitors were clearly disappointed at finding only a small number of machines on display, all of which used basically the same process, i.e. diffusion transfer. The machines had been chosen on the strength of their ability to copy from bound volumes as well as single sheets, and this principle of selection more or less determined the nature of the process involved.
The BRITISH INSTITUTE OF RECORDED SOUND
Authors: EATON JAMES J.
Published: February 2008

During the past two years—and particularly in recent months—the British Institute of Recorded Sound has made considerable progress, both in the expansion of its archive collection, which now contains some 48,000 discs and 300 tapes, and in the rapidly expanding use by students of the listening facilities which it provides. The general public, too, is becoming increasingly aware of the Institute's existence and of its authoritative standing, as is evidenced by the many requests received for information on all aspects of recorded sound.
SIGNPOSTS: SOME SELECTIONS FROM The 1959 SPECIAL LIBRARY LITERATURE
Authors: PATERSON G.M.
Published: February 2008

For the first time since this series of annual reviews of the literature of special librarianship and information work began, the authorship has changed hands. It is fitting to pay tribute to the skill with which Mr J. Bird has compiled this review each year and to express the hope that the same standards of selectivity and pragmatic appraisal set by Mr Bird will be maintained. The aim of the survey remains unchanged: to bring to the notice of librarians, particularly those in the smaller organizations, the more significant and practically useful books, pamphlets, and articles which appeared during the past year, or, more strictly, were received in the Aslib library during the past year. Experience of the types of inquiry most frequently received in the Aslib library has been particularly useful in determining the type of publication that could most profitably be included. As has been stressed in previous years, the survey is not intended to be used as a bibliographical tool, since this purpose is adequately served by other existing services, but rather as a guide to current reading.
The TAPE TYPEWRITER PLAN:
Authors: MOOERS CALVIN N.
Published: February 2008

The ‘Tape Typewriter Plan’ is a plan for making possible a widespread co‐operation in documentation between libraries, while at the same time facilitating the internal clerical and cataloguing operations at individual libraries. The plan is based upon the use of a tape‐controlled typewriter and the associated use of the full capabilities of modern information processing machines (electronic computers and their related devices). Any individual library requires only a tape typewriter in order to enter the plan and to become a full co‐operator. By the exchange of tapes between libraries, the present enormous duplication of bibliographic work at co‐operating libraries can be markedly reduced, because keyboard operations performed at one library can be used to make catalogue cards at another. Conformity to any single classification system or to any specific catalogue card format is definitely not required by the plan, since the information processing machines operating on the tapes produced can make new tapes for other formats and can perform translations from one classification system to another. The information processing machines can also be used for rapid compilation of special indexes, lists, selected bibliographies, union catalogues, lists of holdings geographically, etc., for the documentary resources of all the co‐operating libraries. A most important aspect of the plan is that it will not require setting up a unique large‐scale universal documentation centre for processing, search, or storage. The plan does not require conformity in the choice of tape‐typewriter equipment to be employed. The plan does not require library ownership of computing equipment, nor does it depend upon any specific choice of computing equipment. The plan is shown to be self‐motivating, with participation at each library following from the library's own assessment of its self‐interest.
RETIREMENT OF DR RICHARD OFFOR
Authors: PAFFORD J.H.P.
Published: February 2008

In February of this year Dr R. Offor retired from his post of Library Adviser to the Inter‐University Council for Higher Education Overseas, and there are many reasons why his retirement calls for special notice. In the first place it closes an unbroken period of library service of some sixty years. This record may have been exceeded in the past—possibly, for example, by Henry Guppy and by B.M. Headicar—but few are likely to surpass it in the future. And Dr Offor's long career has been of great distinction. As a young man he joined the staff of the Library of University College, London in 1901 and remained in that Library, serving under R.W.Chambers, until 1919. Dr Offor was then appointed University Librarian at Leeds, a post which he held until his retirement in 1947 when he was made Emeritus Librarian; and in that same year he was appointed by the Colonial Office as Library Adviser to the Inter‐University Council for Higher Education Overseas.
USE OF PUNCHED CARDS In PREPARATION OF LISTS OF PERIODICALS
Authors: ANTHONY L.J. , HAILSTONE J.E.
Published: February 2008

Scientific and technical periodicals and other serial publications are purchased by the Main Library at Harwell for its own collections and for those of twenty‐two divisional libraries. Subscriptions are placed through a bookseller for all serials other than Government publications which are purchased direct from HMSO. In addition, a number of journals are presented to the library from various sources. All serial publications are recorded in the library catalogues and individual copies are checked in by the Main Library using conventional visible index equipment. For quick reference a strip index of holdings and locations is kept in the Reading Room of the library.
The ASLIB CRANFIELD RESEARCH PROJECT ON The COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCY OF INDEXING SYSTEMS
Authors: CLEVERDON C.W.
Published: February 2008

The Aslib Cranfield Project had its beginning some years back, when several members of the Aslib Aeronautical Group took an active part in the development of a new form of index that had been proposed by the National Aeronautical Institute of Holland. Later we did some tests on the Uniterm system of co‐ordinate indexing and, following a joint conference with the Classification Research Group, the idea developed of making a complete test of various indexing systems. A draft programme was prepared and was considered by many people in this country and the United States. An application was made to the National Science Foundation for a grant to cover the first stage of the investigation, and in July 1957 the Foundation advised Aslib that the grant had been approved.
The TECHNIQUE OF INDEXING BOOKS
Authors: BISHOP W.J.
Published: February 2008

It is impossible to give an exposition of the techniques of indexing in a twenty‐minute talk, so I shall only try to draw attention to a few basic principles, with special reference to the indexing of medical books.
The LECTURE THEATRE OF The ROYAL AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY
Authors: BARRETT ANTHONY J.
Published: February 2008

The lecture is probably the most inefficient means of disseminating information; I hope, however, that I shall not prove the truth of this too rigorously in the course of what follows.
AUTOMATIC RETRIEVAL OF TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Authors: LESLIE W.H.P.
Published: February 2008

The article considers how technical abstracts can be coded, filed and retrieved in the particular circumstances at the National Engineering Laboratory, East Kilbride, where a DEUCE high‐speed computer is available. The author is not satisfied with the UDC for indexing abstracts but has evolved a similar system designed to fit the instrumentation field.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION In AUTOMOBILE ENGINEERING
Authors: VEASEY W.I.
Published: February 2008

In 1862 a Frenchman named Beau de Rochas patented in Paris a four‐stroke cycle engine, and although this original design was neglected and forgotten for many years its principle formed the basis for the phenomenal development of the internal combustion engine. In the intervening hundred years, whether we like it or not, the automobile has become one of the more important factors in our private and national lives. The early engineers, from Otto and Daimler to Lanchester and Ricardo, synthesized in their work the theory and applications of the machines they designed and built; but the last thirty or forty years has seen such a development in complexity of the machine and importance of the industry that it is no longer possible for one man, or group of men, to be in complete control of all phases of development. This suddenly accelerated progress is probably one of the reasons why engineers are not usually literature conscious and why the literature is even more uncontrolled and disorganized than in other subjects. The object of this survey is to show some of the in‐adequacies in the services and sources of information at present available to members of the industry in this country and perhaps to indicate some lines on which development in documentation might take place.
HANDLING CORRESPONDENCE:
Authors: BUNKER L.H.
Published: February 2008

In order to compile and present to this conference a factual survey describing the existing procedures for control of current business records, especially‐correspondence, a questionnaire on the subject was drawn up by a working party and sent out to 135 organizations, including industrial and commercial establishments, Government departments, research associations and institutions, and local government offices. The questionnaire was designed to elicit information concerning the volume of incoming correspondence, the methods used for control and filing, and the kind of staff employed in handling it.
TECHNICAL TRANSLATIONS:
Authors: REED J.B.
Published: February 2008

My excuse for offering anything to this discussion today springs from some remarks that I made in a paper to the Aslib Technical Translations Conference of January 1960. At that conference we were discussing co‐operative action and how we could promote and extend it. I ventured to suggest that the problem of making up translations was one of the current impediments to the growth of co‐operation in translation. Further, I suggested that there should be exchange of experience and possibly an assembly of information about the various vogues amongst information sections so that we might be able to arrive at one or two useful, perhaps simplified, recommended procedures.
The LITERATURE OF FILM LIBRARIANSHIP
Authors: KULA SAM
Published: February 2008

Let me begin by reassuring you that this paper is not a survey of the literature of the film. The library of the British Film Institute contains just over 10,000 books and pamphlets relating to the film, and even a hasty survey of a body of literature of that size and complexity would occupy us all night. Most of this literature, moreover, falls outside the scope of the bibliography I am compiling on which this paper is based: a bibliography of film librarianship. My subject this evening, therefore, is limited to the literature that deals in some measure with the art, the science, or, if you prefer, the discipline of film librarianship; the collection, organization, and treatment of films in libraries. That there is such a discipline is, I think, warranted by the existence of this group, and if there are still some unbelievers in that great grey sea of librarianship beyond Aslib, I trust the Cataloguing Code that has been so methodically (I almost said painfully) formulated at the fortnightly sessions of your Cataloguing Committee will be fully recognized as the birth certificate of a new and vital branch of the ‘penurious science’.
SATISFYING A DEMAND OR CREATING A MARKET
Authors: HEAP H.R.
Published: February 2008

In approaching the subject of technical publications, it is important to stress that the business of publishing technical information should not be confused with journalism in the form of national or local press. The journalist writes primarily to entertain, whereas the technical publisher aims to inform his readers.
LINKING RESEARCH AND DESIGN
Authors: BARRETT ANTHONY J.
Published: February 2008

This paper describes a fully integrated technical service, as represented by the author's Department, and treats briefly some of the methods for finding and using technical information which are employed. As the integrated technical service is a component of the research‐design‐production complex and relies primarily upon the services of engineers and scientists, its concepts of data recovery—and its methods in general—are heavily influenced by the technologist's inherent knowledge of his subject and the relevant sources of information. It is concluded that much may be gained from the integration of technologists into the whole process of information dissemination and that integrated technical services may be of assistance in many fields beyond those in which they have already proved effective.
The RELATIONS BETWEEN A CENTRAL INFORMATION UNIt AND SECTIONAL UNITS. PART I. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Authors: STOCKS J.R.
Published: February 2008

The decision by Aslib to allocate a complete session of the Annual Conference to two papers on the relations between a central information unit and sectional units is an attempt to bring into the open a question which has for years been clouded in prejudice. The growth of information services, whether on an international, national, industry, or laboratory scale, has often been haphazard. A central unit, or a number of sectional units, or both systems together, may have developed as a result of pressures which often do not reflect the true needs of the users. The purpose of this paper is to try to review the problem objectively and to see what principles should govern the relationship between various units concerned with information within an organization (using the word organization in its widest sense).
CAN ‘The LITERATURE’ BE READABLE?
Authors: PYKE MAGNUS
Published: February 2008

Literature, in the ordinary sense of the word, is the written record of something worth saying, well said. In the special sense in which it is now used, ‘the literature’ is everything that is published by scientists and about science. It includes weighty and scholarly monographs and textbooks, long and detailed reports of researches occupying half the lifetime of a man, substantial contributions by teams of workers announcing discoveries of first‐rate importance—and short notes of detailed observations, descriptions of new apparatus, fresh techniques, the use of a new reagent, sometimes merely the use of an old reagent but differently applied. The literature includes as well secondary literature, reviews of papers already published, lists of titles, abstracts, translations, patents. There is even a tertiary literature comprising reviews of topics already covered by other reviews and collections of abstracts. And as the backbone of the tertiary literature we always have the steady output of textbooks and handbooks, of published symposia and colloquia containing articles which are themselves reviews of abstracts of the primary literature in which the actual scientific facts are reported.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF ‘FEATURE CARD’ SYSTEMS. II
Authors: CHILDS S.B.
Published: February 2008

The Bristol Aircraft Limited Guided Weapons Department is a comparatively new organization with its own technical information and library services; its modern Technical Information Bureau (TIB) is a self‐contained unit serving the whole of the organization with general services for the lower levels and special services for the higher.
The DISSEMINATION OF PUBLISHED INFORMATION TO The EXECUTIVES OF A MAJOR STEEL GROUP
Authors: HINDSON R.
Published: February 2008

The British iron and steel industry has long been conscious of the need to provide facilities for the free interchange of relevant information. It was, in fact, the consciousness that the free interchange of information is necessary to a prosperous industry which led to the establishment of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1869.
A NEW UNIVERSITY PROSPECT
Authors: COX DENNIS
Published: February 2008

The dreary months of midwinter are enlivened for university librarians by the arrival on their desks of the annual reports of their colleagues. These reports, from whichever part of the world they come, are now almost without exception variations on two main themes. First the achievements of the session under review accompanied by statistics which show increases on the considerable achievements of the preceding session. Second a plea for greater sums of money to buy more books, to pay more staff to process and exploit them, and often to build new libraries or extensions to house growing collections and larger student numbers.
A NEW UNIVERSITY PROSPECT
Authors: GRAHAM MACKENZIE A.
Published: February 2008

My colleagues have dealt most admirably with two detailed aspects of starting a new library from scratch; with a certain amount of low cunning, I have reserved for myself the task of speaking more generally about the end product of their efforts—for books, no matter how lavishly they are provided, and buildings, no matter how well planned and executed, are only the essential preparation or raw material for the librarian's proper task of getting information (whether in books or serials or pamphlets or videotape) to the people who need it.
INVESTIGATING SDI
Authors: AITCHISON T.M.
Published: February 2008

From investigations made by the NERC Working Party on Scientific Information it is clear that, even in the restricted field of electronics research, there are already too many different sources of current‐awareness information, mainly abstracts journals and title lists, which must be scanned by a research worker who wishes to keep abreast of developments in his field. To ensure that he knows of all the published and semi‐published information of interest to him he may have to scan more than ten current‐awareness publications each month.
ASLIB PAST AND FUTURE
Authors: HUTTON R.S.
Published: February 2008

The meeting took the form of an interview in which Professor Hutton answered questions put to him by a panel consisting of Miss M. Gosset, M.B.E., B.Sc., A.R.C.S., formerly Librarian, AERE, Harwell; Mr B.Fullman, M.B.E., B.Sc., F.R.I.C., F.I.M., formerly Information Officer, BNFMRA; and Mr Leslie Wilson, M.A., Director of Aslib.
A DATA BANK: The SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ARCHIVE CENTRE
Authors: GROSE DAPHNE
Published: February 2008

New forms of source material demand new centres of preservation and retrieval. Today government officials, academics and the staff of commercial organizations share an interest in the data collected by social and market research survey interviewers. Information may exist in questionnaires, in decks of punched cards, and on computer tapes that has never been fully analysed (for example data from television audience research). Other data may have been analysed, but not published. Little of this material is readily available to those who need it, and the work put into it is largely wasted. In the future, research workers wishing to construct mathematical models using past experience will curse us, if this material has not been preserved for their use.
The FUTURE OF INFORMATION WORK The ASLIB ANNUAL LECTURE
Authors: BATTEN W.E.
Published: February 2008

An annual lecture is, by any standards, a daunting occasion. But when it is a first annual lecture; and when it is for Aslib; and when it is delivered from a spot that is almost hallowed by the integrity and distinction of successive incumbents, then humility must moderate whatever gospel the speaker personally embraces. In this spirit, I will do my best to inaugurate an annual occasion that will, I hope, grow in esteem, hand in hand with the emerging stature and dignity of our art.
PERIODICALS HELD IN The ASLIB LIBRARY AS AT 15th JULY 1967
Authors: FOY YVONNE
Published: February 2008

A.C.L.S. Newsletter [American Council of Learned Societies]
TIME TO THINK—USE OF The SYSTEMS APPROACH TO The PROBLEMS OF The ‘ONE‐MAN’ INFORMATION UNIT
Authors: WHITEHALL T.
Published: February 2008

One result of being a ‘small’ librarian has been that, although hired to provide a current awareness service and write reviews for a research staff, I must spend a proportion of my time in arranging for the buying, cataloguing, lending, borrowing and binding of books and other material. However, I do not see these two sorts of activity as separate in any way, but as both containing elements of two fundamentally different approaches to human effort, which I shall call the professional and the clerical. If I was entirely on my own, my professional hat would be worn when deciding what book to buy, what words to use as indexing labels, what ideas in a paper were relevant, what advantages a newly available reproduction process would have over the system in use in my library. My clerical hat would get an airing when I passed on a request for a book purchase, typed and filed the index cards, or arranged for a record of a loan to be made.
ORGANIZATIONAL NUCLEI AND INFORMATION CATALYSTS
Authors: STERN B.T.
Published: February 2008

In listening to Miss Thornton and Mr Whitehall we have considered some of the ways by which the traditional activities of an information service need a modified approach in the context of the smaller departments. I now wish to look at certain aspects of these activities and forecast the changes in emphasis that will be required in the light of future developments.
The BRIDGE INDEX: AN EXERCISE IN CURRENT AWARENESS
Authors: BROWN J.W.F.
Published: February 2008

In many areas of scientific and technological endeavour there is vital need for rapid access to developments reported in the recently published literature, In particular, pharmaceutical and medical research, and certain areas of the plastics industry are examples of fields where new developments may affect lines of work.
The POWER GAME: INFORMATION BULLETINS FOR The CENTRAL ELECTRICITY GENERATING BOARD
Authors: PRIOR R.W.
Published: February 2008

Before discussing in detail the range of information bulletins issued by CEGB Information Services, I should like to give a few details of the structure of the British electricity supply industry.
The EFFECT OF MEMBERSHIP OF The COMMON MARKET ON INFORMATION WORK
Authors: REICHARDT GÜNTHER
Published: February 2008

The ‘Common Market’, now fused with the European Union for Coal and Steel (usually abbreviated to the ‘Mining Union’) and with the European Atomic Energy Community, is primarily founded on economic considerations to create a common productive European market. I need not say any more about this, since Great Britain has expressed the wish to become a component part of this European association. Lord Gladwyn considers this decision to be more significant than the declaration of war of 1939; he also considers it to be the end of an era.
BP'S EXPERIENCE WITH A COMPUTER‐BASED INFORMATION SYSTEM
Authors: THOMAS G.W. , SCOTT P.H.
Published: February 2008

Since 1962 The British Petroleum Company Limited has been subscribing to the American Petroleum Institute's (API) Abstracts of Refining Literature. This service, which provides abstracts in both bulletin and card form from a wide range of petroleum and petrochemical sources, proved extremely useful, and rapidly became the basis for the General Information Service at the BP Research Centre, Sunbury. Because of this, when the API decided that from 1964 onwards their abstracts would be indexed by a computer‐based co‐ordinate indexing system, it was agreed that we would attempt to make as full a use as possible of the new facilities offered. This paper is a record of our attempts to use two aspects of the system—searching by computer, which involves the use of an IBM 1401, and preparing a computer tape from our own indexing, using a 1401 and a 7094.
PRODUCT ANALYSIS BY CO‐ORDINATE INDEX
Authors: HUTTON G.H.
Published: February 2008

As architects with a specialized practice giving advice to manufacturers and others on product development and performance specification, we find the handling and interpretation of information forms an important part of our work. In 1964 we were commissioned to investigate the building industry in Britain with regard to demand, resources and techniques. Among other things, this task entailed analysing 330 proprietary building systems. To study and compare products in this advanced technical area was obviously going to be a far more complicated process than a straightforward comparison of single materials or appliances, and a suitable method for doing it had to be found. The following is an account of the steps that led us to co‐ordinate indexing and our application of the system.
AN AUTOMATED LITERATURE RETRIEVAL SYSTEM
Authors: HARDEN R. MCG.
Published: February 2008

Faced with an unprecented growth in available knowledge it is now almost impossible for the doctor, whether in clinical practice or engaged in research, to keep abreast of current developments. Both the research worker and the clinician would benefit greatly from ready access to papers dealing with their areas of interest. Most have experienced the sense of frustration that arises from knowing that somewhere one has seen a piece of information, but one does not quite know where. The human brain as a storage system is poorly organized and as a retrieval system is chancy at best (Ann. Int. Med., 1967). What is needed is some aid to memory. To obtain an estimate of the magnitude of one aspect of the problem I reviewed papers I published in 1965–66. The total number was thirty‐two, the average number of references per paper nineteen and the total number of references cited was 595. This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg and represents only a fraction of the references to be reviewed. It was obvious that some form of automated literature retrieval system was desirable if not essential, and it is the purpose of the present paper to report my experiences of such a system.
AN INDUSTRIAL PATENT AGENT LOOKS AT HIS WORK
Authors: CROPP J.A.D.
Published: February 2008

I have found that to be able to do proper justice to the theory and practice of patenting, a minimum of three hours' dissertation is required. My voice, like your interest, would meet a nasty end long, long before that time had elapsed. Consequently, I propose to spend a few minutes providing a rough pencil outline of patent philosophy and then sketch in a little more detail the area where the patent expert and the information retrieval expert need to co‐operate.
ORGANIZATIONAL ASPECTS OF INFORMATION FLOW IN TECHNOLOGY
Authors: ALLEN T.J.
Published: February 2008

For about five years now a small group of us at MIT have been conducting a series of investigations into the information needs of technologists, the manner in which these needs are presently met, the relation between various ways of fulfilling information needs and technological performance, and the nature of factors which determine the ways in which information needs will be fulfilled.
The DEVELOPMENT OF SDI SERVICES
Authors: EAST HARRY
Published: February 2008

Ten years have elapsed since the publication of Luhn's conceptual paper ‘A business intelligence system’ in which he visualized the employment of e.d.p. equipment for a ‘service within an organization which concerns itself with channelling new items of information, from whatever source, to those points within an organization where the probability of usefulness in connection with current work or interests is high’. In a later paper, Luhn elaborated on the selective dissemination function. From this seminal paper, the development of SDI systems, first by IBM and then others, can be traced.
EXPERIENCES AND PROBLEMS OF ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING ENCOUNTERED BY The UNIVERSITY OF BOCHUM LIBRARY
Authors: PFLUG G.
Published: February 2008

After five years' experience with electronic data processing at the University of Bochum Library it is now possible to derive some conclusions as to its practicability. The automation stage reached so far includes automation facilities with regard to circulation and alphabetic cataloguing operations, whereas other processes such as binding control, union catalogue of serials, acquisition, and classified cataloguing are only partially automated. As soon as the university library began its work in 1963 plans concerning the eventual automation of all operations were at once submitted, with the result that two departments never existed in traditional form, i.e. the cataloguing and circulation departments. The planners of the electronic data processing system in Bochum pursue the aim of building up an integrated system which includes all departments of the library. At the outset it was hoped to reach this end within a period of five to six years. But five years of practical programming have shown that it is impossible to develop an integrated system in such a short time. The automation of a department is effected in several steps. After finishing the basic plans the programming of a department takes from twelve to eighteen months. On this basis it was expected to complete a fully integrated system in five or six years' time. But in the course of operations it turned out that a lot of alterations and corrections are necessary, and this for two reasons:
COMPUTER‐BASED INFORMATION SERVICES
Authors: SOMERFIELD G.A.
Published: February 2008

Computer‐based information services covering major disciplines of science have been developed recently from certain traditional abstracting and indexing services. A wide range of secondary information services is provided to satisfy the various information requirements generated by the present complexity of scientific and technological work. This development has caused radical changes in the administration structure, pricing policies and funding of the organizations providing information services.
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTATION STANDARDS
Authors: HUDSON SPENCER
Published: February 2008

The American Magazine of Standards regularly uses as its banner headline the anonymous quotation ‘Standardization is dynamic, not static; it means not to stand still, but to move forward together’. It is spaced out with each word of the estimable text separated for double emphasis, and it always evokes in me an uncomfortable picture of a small pious nod of concurrence from the reader before he eases back into a more comfortable position in his pew for a worthy sermon. The word ‘standardization’ does often have a numbing effect and a pejorative sound. Standards do seem dull, and it is important to break through this psychological barrier.
PROGRAMMED INSTRUCTION IN CLASSIFICATION AND INDEXING
Authors: BATTY C.D.
Published: February 2008

Many early programs were designed to teach either routine operations that could be broken down into easily learned, consecutive steps, or elementary levels of academic subjects like mathematics, basic science or foreign languages. For a long time programmed instruction was not thought suitable for conceptual subjects at a more advanced level, but the appearance of programs to teach subjects like advanced mathematics or computer programming suggested that it was not so much a matter of suitable subjects as of methodology. This is not the place for an examination of conventional attitudes towards academic disciplines and their teaching, but it might be observed that programmed instruction offers yet another confirmation of the growing realization that difficult subjects can be explained in a simple and even enjoyable manner without in any way lowering the level or dignity of those subjects.
MICROFICHING OF PERIODICALS FROM The USERS' POINT OF VIEW
Authors: CLARIDGE P.R.P.
Published: February 2008

The microfiche has become widespread in its use in recent years largely through its standardization by the United States Government for reports. Based on a process invented by J. Goebel in 1939, it owed its rapid development in Europe to the efforts of Dr L. J. van der Wolk, who created the Netherlands Microfiche Foundation. Now that there is some standardization of microfiche size and format, this microform has a much greater chance of success than it did when each manufacturer or publisher produced microfiche to his own sheet size and frame spacing and, in general, to an inadequate standard of quality. The 6 in. by 4 in. COSAT1 format is a most suitable standard and this agrees with the preferred size in the British Standard.
PRODUCT INFORMATION SERVICES‐SOME COMPARISONS
Authors: KENNINGTON D.
Published: February 2008

About a year ago at a meeting of English Electric librarians at our Dunchurch Staff Training Centre the problem of the increasing number of firms marketing trade literature retrieval and dissemination systems was raised in the ‘any other business’. As there was little time at that stage to discuss the problem in detail, I was asked to produce with some urgency a brief report on the existing situation. It was realized that many in the company, both in libraries and outside them, were being pestered by salesmen with requests to be allowed to demonstrate their product. Although the decentralization of the company meant that any such report could only be a recommending document it was felt by all present at the meeting that it would be extremely helpful in giving the facts as clearly and in an unbiased way as possible. The report was completed in late June and led to the publication of an article based on it in the Electrical Review, 20th September 1969.
The ROLE OF The OFFICE FOR SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION (OSTI)
Authors: MAY D.H.
Published: February 2008

Technical information centres of one type or another span the whole range of intellectual effort and activity. At one end there are small one‐man collections of material used by one or two groups of individuals, and at the other there are the very large collections, open to all comers, held by scientific and technical Government agencies. The role of OSTI at the present time is to provide support for a comparatively recent type of information centre, which we call a specialized information centre, for the purposes of experimentation and evaluation. This type of centre is now called an information analysis centre in the USA, and the importance attached to this information technique can be judged by the fact that there are now approximately two hundred such centres operating there.
The BIODETERIORATION INFORMATION CENTRE AS AN EXAMPLE OF A SPECIALIZED INFORMATION CENTRE
Authors: EGGINS H.O.W.
Published: February 2008

The purpose of a Specialized Information Centre is to provide a comprehensive information service within a relatively restricted subject field. In this country Specialized Information Centres have been established both independently and with the assistance of the Office for Scientific and Technical Information mainly on an experimental basis with a view to gaining knowledge of the operation of, and the need for, specialized information services. The Office for Scientific and Technical Information has drawn up a series of criteria for consideration in supporting Specialized Information Centres so that they can obtain useful knowledge both in regard to their operation and also in regard to their place in the national communication network. Of the existing Specialized Information Centres OSTI has supported six, of which the Biodeterioration Information Centre was the first. The areas to which particular attention has been paid and in which Specialized Information Centres can perhaps be most useful are the newly developing sciences and technologies where existing knowledge and experience is scattered and not well defined, and where literature is spread over a wide variety of sources. Thus the Specialized Information Centre can help not only in terms of its primary role in supplying information but as a catalyst for the overall development of each subject.
CO‐OPERATION AMONG OR WITHIN RESEARCH ASSOCIATIONS
Authors: LEICESTER J.
Published: February 2008

The theme of your Conference—Co‐operation—describes perfectly the present role of the industrial Research Associations and their support of British Industry. Forty‐five individual Research Associations are at present actively serving industry and they form a powerful link whereby the policy needs of government, the fundamental research activity in the universities and the technological and economic needs of industry come together at a focal point.
CO‐OPERATION IN The FIELD OF PATENTS
Authors: WESTON W.
Published: February 2008

In preparing this paper I was faced with the problem of not knowing how much you know about patents. I do not wish to bore those of you who are knowledgeable or confuse those who are expert in other subjects.
3. Co‐operative abstracting services: food
Authors: MANN E.J.
Published: February 2008

It is no exaggeration to say that ‘co‐operation’ has been the keynote of our success in publishing the first issue of Food Science and Technology Abstracts within one year of the establishment of the International Food Information Service.
The FUTURE OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS
Authors: SMAILES A.A.
Published: February 2008

I am sure you do not need reminding of the flood of scientific information that is available today and the estimates of its growth in the next two decades. In 1967, Olaf Helmer, then Senior Mathematician at the Rand Corporation, forecast that scientists and engineers would increase from five million, in 1967, to twenty‐five million by the year 2000 and their total productivity would go up by a factor of ten. He declined to assess the associated growth of, and need for, scientific information but merely stated that there would be substantial changes in the way in which science would actually be transacted. It is these ‘substantial changes’ that concern the publisher, editor, information scientist and librarian, because if we do not anticipate—or at least keep pace with these changes—then we will not be able to meet the information needs of our readers and we will become redundant. Scientific information is a growing industry and it would be ironic if we could not survive amid an abundance of information. I regard the chance to do something about the flow of information as a response to opportunity, not as an act of desperation. The big problem is to sort out what is pertinent among this information and, in this world of rapid change, select and develop the technological devices that will match the needs of the scientist to this mass of information. As a first step, I suggest we should define an ideal information system so that our progress can be planned and measured against the best possible datum.
The IMPACT OF MECHANIZATION ON The BOOK WORLD
Authors: BLACKWELL JULIAN
Published: February 2008

We must first stop and think whether there will be a future for the book world. The book has been in use for hundreds of years, as a medium for communicating information, but it is now meeting fiercer and fiercer competition. When television first became widely used, there were prophecies that the sales of books would diminish. Now we have colour television and video‐tape recording. Perhaps we shall soon be able to borrow a video‐tape of Ivanhoe or even the latest novel from the public library. The use of audio‐visual aids is growing fast, particularly in schools. Language laboratories, and teaching machines sometimes coupled with computers, are on the increase. Computer installations are increasing in number and scope even faster than the experts predict. We hear of plans for data bases for vast on‐line data banks. I am told that the main reason that Leasco took over Pergamon was to obtain Pergamon's journals for a data base.
COMMERCIAL INFORMATION
Authors: HENDERSON G.P.
Published: February 2008

‘Commercial information’ is a large and imprecise concept, and one that is almost impossible to define. Every innovation, in fact every new condition or situation, can originate business activity and a need for information. Obviously all business enterprises need what can only be described as ‘general information’; most also require scientific and technical information; commercial information fits into neither category—it is often useless to anyone not engaged in business, and it certainly cannot be described as scientific. It therefore seems that commercial information can only be described as ‘special information of interest primarily to those engaged in business operations’. ‘Primarily’ is an important qualification—today much information formerly regarded as strictly ‘commercial’ is of major consequence to the private consumer and those who protect his interests.
AUTOMATIC THESAURUS CONSTRUCTION AND The RELATION OF A THESAURUS TO INDEXING TERMS
Authors: SPARCK JONES KAREN
Published: February 2008

My research over the last few years has been concerned with the use of automatically‐obtained keyword classifications for information retrieval. Such a classification can be described as a thesaurus, but those classifications which have been most successful in my experiments do not resemble the normal kind of manually‐constructed thesaurus, and the bases on which automatic and manual thesauri are constructed are quite different. Human beings explicitly consider the meanings of words in grouping them, but word meanings are not accessible to computers. Automatic word classification is therefore based on information about the distributional behaviour of words in documents, on the assumption that words which behave in similar ways in terms of document occurrences are semantically related. That is to say, groups of words which are based on the statistical associations of their members in documents should reflect their meaning relations, at least sufficiently for the purposes of retrieval.
PRACTICAL PROBLEMS AND PRINCIPLES OF IN‐SERVICE TRAINING
Authors: MARTIN ALEC
Published: February 2008

I am going to ask you to do something which information staff are often asked to do—two things at once. My group in the DEP is concerned with initiating useful research in training, monitoring it when it is in progress, feeding the results and other information about training into a central classified storage and retrieval system and publishing this information mainly for the benefit of training specialists. More exactly, training specialists are the bulls‐eye of our target, but there are many other people such as managers, research workers and information staff who need to keep in touch with training developments. We are therefore not only concerned with training but also with information about training and we try our best to apply to our own staff the principles which are being developed for industry at large. We certainly want to avoid the old paradox ‘those who can, do; those who can't—teach’. I therefore want you to learn at two levels, about our information service and about the principles inherent in its design.
INTERGOVERNMENTAL PLANS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: OECD AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL BODIES
Authors: JUDGE P.J.
Published: February 2008

The title that was printed in the programme—‘OECD and Unesco’—which took me a little by surprise, is at the same time too broad and too constricting. Too broad, because one can say a great deal about intergovernmental planning and co‐operation without ever mentioning an international organization. Too broad also, perhaps, because I have been involved directly only in the OECD programmes and so can only talk about OECD at first hand. Too constricting, because if one introduces international organizations at all there is no justification for stopping at those two: there are a great many inter‐ and non‐governmental bodies interested in information and governments work with all of them.
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SERVICES
Authors: BLAGDEN J.F.
Published: February 2008

Traditionally special libraries have developed collections of technical literature concerned with the products that are manufactured by the company or organization with which the library is associated. Until recently, if one went into the average special library—if there is such a thing—one would have found very few publications on the shelves on how to manage the company, how to evaluate the personnel and how to market the products. This restriction of special libraries to primarily technical information is in my view a short‐sighted approach, as many of the important decisions which will affect, for example, research and development environment will be taken outside the r and d environment. It is obviously important for the library to ensure that a company is effectively managed so that such decisions prove to be correct. Librarians too rarely seem to be involved with internally generated information, and this also seems to militate against the concept of the special library as the memory of the firm. The librarian's skills of handling and disseminating information could also be applied to wider areas such as desk market research and personnel records.
UNCO‐OPERATION BY (AND BETWEEN) LIBRARIANS AND INFORMATION WORKERS
Authors: CAMPBELL D.J.
Published: February 2008

This paper is an expanded version of the second part of my paper on ‘Unco‐operation’ given at the Aslib Annual Conference, 1969, the first part of which, dealing with unco‐operation in general, has already appeared.
REVIEW OF The ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH
Authors: WHITEMAN PHILIP M.
Published: February 2008

The history of research in library science is not the easiest of subjects to speak on with any hope of presenting significant interpretations and conclusions, because as a topic of interest to the whole profession, in Britain at least, research in our field is a very new one, with the main developments of significance crowded into the last ten or fifteen years—it is as yet far too early to form a historical perspective. True we can review and catalogue a good many facts about research activity, and note certain milestones, but it is not possible, and will not be possible for another decade or two, to assess in a valid way, the significance of all this activity in terms of professional practice.
SOME PROBLEMS OF USING AN UNSTRUCTURED INFORMATION RETRIEVAL LANGUAGE IN A CO‐ORDINATE INDEXING SYSTEM
Authors: PICKFORD A.G.A.
Published: February 2008

The title raises at least four questions:
PRIMARY SOURCES IN ECONOMICS
Authors: SWANN D.
Published: February 2008

I should begin by saying that in addressing the Social Sciences Group of Aslib I feel not only a sense of pleasure but also that I am perpetrating the act of carrying coals to Newcastle. Having said that I should add that what I have to say consists of my own personal views. They reflect my research interests which lie in the fields of industrial economics—specifically monopoly and restrictive practices policy—and international economics—specifically the European Economic Community. Let me finally put you on your guard by pointing out that it is a notorious fact that no two economists think alike on any topic.
The BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY AND The COLLECTION OF PRIMARY MATERIALS
Authors: FULFORD R.J.
Published: February 2008

Perhaps the first thing that needs to be said is that, although we have not called it by the name until recently, the British Museum Library has been acquiring social science material throughout its existence and I was glad that many speakers have paid tribute to the richness of its collection.