bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The theoretical foundation of the IDC‐system: six postulates for information retrieval
Authors: Fugmann Robert
Published: February 2008

Successful delegated searching for publications relevant to the topic of an inquirer obeys rules whose relations to thermodynamics are unmistakable. By the continuous growth of a documentation system in the physical and conceptual respect, steadily increasing demands are made on the degree of order which prevails in the system or can be established at the specific request of an inquirer. If the order in a system cannot keep pace with the increasing requirements, its working capability will continuously decrease, because the searcher is becoming more and more overburdened in relation to his available search time, search patience, and search memory. The degree of order attainable in a growing literature collection can be estimated on the basis of six postulates. The better the requirements imposed by these postulates are approximated in a practical documentation system, the higher are its working capability and life expectancy, but the expenditure to be made on the literature analyses must also inevitably be higher.
The administration of diffuse collections
Authors: Ashworth Wilfred
Published: February 2008

There is a story of the tourist who, after a special package tour intended to show the British way of life, complained that he had not been shown the Church of England! I meet much the same situation when people ask me to show them the Library of the Polytechnic of Central London for it has seven separate divisions dotted around its fourteen buildings and to show it all involves a walk of several miles. Perhaps this is why the Winter Meetings Committee decided to ask me when they thought it time that some attention was focused on the problem of administering diffuse collections. I have been a member of that Committee myself and can imagine the discussion. First the doubt—‘but he hasn't been there very long’, then the hopeful—‘well at least he'll have had to think about it’, and that's another meeting as good as fixed!
Research by Aslib into costing of information services
Authors: Vickery B.C.
Published: February 2008

The interest of the Aslib Research and Development Department in economic aspects of information service reaches back to the early days of the Department, under the leadership of Chris Hanson. I will be referring to a study of standard times made in 1961 by Margaret Slater and himself. He also undertook an investigation, which was unfortunately never published, on the cost of interlibrary borrowing. Our current interests spread over five areas are:
Intermediate languages for switching and control
Authors: Gilchrist Alan
Published: February 2008

When I was asked to give this paper, I was unaware that the title of the Conference was ‘Words and Meaning’. While I warmly welcome this theme, I must admit that it gave me rather abruptly a feeling of nervous awareness of the problem of associating words with meaning. I began to read things twice and look for alternative interpretations; and when I received the registration form for this conference I experienced a feeling of near panic when I was asked to answer the question ‘Will you be eating lunch on Wednesday the 12th of April?’ How difficult it is to verbalize concepts, especially in subject areas such as ours which contain so many abstract notions that one is sometimes guilty of trying to avoid being too precise. I am reminded of the professor, who when asked the question ‘What is electricity?’ replied ‘It all depends what you mean by “is”.’
Information sources about the EEC in Europe
Authors: Maclean Ian
Published: February 2008

Reviewing sources of information in the EEC in a short paper requires a certain facility for avoiding the very problems that cause the most difficulty in practice. This paper can only, therefore, be considered as a guide to the guides of sources of marketing information in the EEC. In finding one's way through the ‘information maze’ to the precise data one is seeking it is helpful to consider the outline of data collection in Europe. The principal sources of information are:
1. MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS AND TRAINING
Authors: Perry B.J.
Published: February 2008

In the twenty minutes available, it will be difficult to deal in any great detail with either of the aspects embodied in the tide of my talk. What I shall do is to touch upon:
2. EDUCATION OF INFORMATION SPECIALISTS FOR The 1970s
Authors: Schur Herbert
Published: February 2008

The previous speakers in this symposium considered in varying detail the questions ‘who’, ‘how’, ‘where’, and ‘what’, in relation to manpower and its education and training. In this paper I intend to return to the question ‘what’, and, in particular, to consider four main points, namely:
Thesaurus reconciliation
Authors: Neville H.H.
Published: February 2008

The technique of reconciling two Of more thesauri is explained and demonstrated with examples from two actual thesauri which are currently being reconciled to form an international co‐operative indexing system in the field of building science. Reconciliation results in the addition of code numbers to the keywords in each thesaurus and the insertion of additional ‘USE’ references, which enable any material indexed with the keywords of one thesaurus to be incorporated in the indexing system based on the other thesaurus without re‐indexing. The original thesauri can continue to be used locally as they were before reconciliation, since the keywords themselves remain unchanged and none are added or deleted. The reconciliation process is independent of thesaurus structure.
Experiences of BP's Patents Information Branch in using commercial patent documentation services
Authors: Helliwell B.F.M.
Published: February 2008

The impact of an external documentation service on the operation of an Information Unit cannot be fully appreciated unless the position of that unit in the parent organization and its function and method of operation are understood. In British Petroleum, there is a single Patents and Trade Marks Division, responsible inter alia for all parent matters for the BP Group world‐wide, so that the subject matter field handled is very broad, including such subjects as oil exploration and production, refinery apparatus and processes, oil products, petrochemicals, polymers, plastics, detergents, pesticides, microbiological production of proteins and instrumentation.
Management in a service environment
Authors: McClelland W.G.
Published: February 2008

The systematic study of management has seen rapid development in this century since the early years when F. W. Taylor was studying the design of work and Henri Fayol the design of organizations. The inter‐war period for example saw the Hawthorne experiments and the growth of the so‐called human relations school and the second world war the initiation of Operational Research. In the last twenty or thirty years all the social sciences have been developing rapidly and so has their application to the problems of management.
Programmed budgeting and cost effectiveness
Authors: Mason D.
Published: February 2008

The importance of being able to demonstrate the effectiveness of information services, in terms of value supplied for money spent, needs no emphasis from me. Industry, in particular, has to show a reasonable return on invested capital, and information services can expect to be supported only as long as they demonstrate their worth. Ideally it would be best to be able to put a quantified value on the information supplied, but there is as yet no acceptable method for measuring, or even estimating this value. This is an area in which research needs to be done, and I hope it will be done in the not‐too‐distant future. However, the fact remains that at present we cannot, except in a very few cases, estimate this value; and although I have recently been taken to task for refusing to grasp this nettle, I remain unrepentant and continue to insist that for the time being we will have to do our best without it.
Techniques for the measurement of cost‐benefit in information centres
Authors: Magson M.S.
Published: February 2008

The value and profitability of information services can be quantified by using modern management techniques to generate numerical data. In this approach, programme budgeting derived from management by objectives exercises is used as a basis for preparing cost‐activity and cost‐function analyses, whilst alternative costs for maintenance of the programme are derived by applying some basic critical examination, activity sampling and work study principles. By difference, cost‐related benefits are obtained for specific activities and functions. The procedure does not indicate the true value of units of information per se, but ranking of the benefits immediately highlights economic and uneconomic operations. Model analyses are described in detail, supported by a number of factual results. The dynamic nature of the system and its use as a management device are illustrated by a practical application in a real‐life change situation.
Public use of business and commercial information: a pilot study at the Commercial Library, Manchester Central Library
Authors: Osborn Averil , Smyth Leslie
Published: February 2008

One of the main difficulties in operating a service for the public is that the public, though very much in evidence individually, may collectively be an unknown quantity. When the service is one offering business and commercial information the difficulties are compounded. The field is fluid, the literature extensive and its acquisition complex. Much of the material quickly becomes out of date. Furthermore, the seeker of business and commercial information has, or may have, many strings to his bow and the part played by any single formal information set up is not obvious.
Justification of information services
Authors: Gee R.D.
Published: February 2008

Of all the speakers today, I think I have the easiest task, since I have to set the stage for justifying information services faced with the widespread problems with which you must be familiar—otherwise you would not be here. It is not for me to conjure up the ideal system, the short or long‐term solution, or the methods which will overcome the sometimes intangible problems. It is merely for me to state some typical problems as a framework for the thoughts of the day. I cannot even promise to mention them all, and hope your discussion will correct my omissions.
Information transfer in the industrial environment—the requirements of industry
Authors: Rowe David
Published: February 2008

I have been asked to talk from the business‐man's angle. My sole experience of information services has been as a non‐scientific user. I know nothing of the theory of information science and obviously I am in actual danger of re‐inventing the wheel.
Enquiry services provided by trade journal editorials
Authors: Bidmead Margaret
Published: February 2008

A survey was carried out to determine the ways in which trade journal editors are able to answer the various types of enquiry which they receive, and to discover how far they are willing to do so. Editors of thirty‐five paid‐circulation and five controlled‐circulation journals were interviewed by means of the informal guided (focused) technique, the majority on a personal‐interview basis. The results from the paid‐circulation journals indicated that most of the enquiries received are telephoned, and require trade information. These can be answered most easily by the editors. Technical enquiries can be dealt with successfully by about half of the editors interviewed. Out of the enquiries relating to journal‐published material, those referring to editorial articles are usually handled by the editors concerned, whereas those referring to contributed articles tend to be referred to the contributing authors. Enquiries for marketing information can again be answered by about half of the editors interviewed, usually those whose journals aim to cover the marketing aspects of their fields. Peripheral enquiries tend to be referred to other trade journals. Most of the editors are prepared to spend between fifteen minutes and one hour on an enquiry, if necessary. About half of them are prepared to do research to find out answers to enquiries, and will give detailed answers when they are required. Just under half of the editors interviewed considered that readers' enquiries are very important, and nine of the sample journals provide some type of specialized enquiry service to deal with them. Since editors are up to date and well informed in their fields, they can usually put the enquirer in touch with people who can help. The degree to which an editor will help an enquirer depends largely on his personal attitude (whether he enjoys answering enquiries, for example), and also on the time he has available and whether he thinks the enquirer is ‘genuine’. The results of the interviews with controlled‐circulation journal editors were very similar to those of paid‐circulation journal editors.
Content representation in document titles: a case study with prostaglandin literature
Authors: Ghosh J.S.
Published: February 2008

A total of 2,792 document titles published in a specialized subject bibliography entitled The Prostaglandins by the Upjohn Company, USA, was examined. There was a slight but significant increase in information content of the titles with time. Employing the Montgomery‐Swanson method, it was found that about 80 per cent of the papers had at least one ‘prostaglandin‐term’ in their titles. The data obtained in this study are compared with those obtained in earlier studies.
Draft definitions
Authors: LINE MAURICE B.
Published: February 2008

The literature on ‘user needs’ has been confused by imprecise use of terms. In particular, studies have purported to be concerned with needs when they have in fact examined uses or demands. The following is an attempt to establish definitions.
Communication about books to undergraduates
Authors: Mann Peter H.
Published: February 2008

The research reported in this paper is part of a general study of books which was begun in 1967 and which has been reported elsewhere, in two books and several papers. The present study is about the communications between people in the universities who are concerned with the use of books by under‐graduates; postgraduate students are excluded because they present different problems.
Italian official publications
Authors: Graziani Alberto
Published: February 2008

For a numberof political, social and economic reasons, the State has been taking over, during the last few decades, a number of functions that have made it, in point of fact, the protagonist of the country's collective life.
Official publications of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
Authors: Clement Liliane
Published: February 2008

This document is only a first attempt at providing a brief description of the official publications of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. In order to repair the omissions and errors in this survey, it would be necessary to send a questionnaire to the various administrations, which would enable us to fill in some considerable gaps in administrative information.
Official publications of Northern Ireland
Authors: McKenna Brian
Published: February 2008

Physical Form of Papers. Most documents have paper covers, and the usual height is 14 cm.
A survey of the opinions of British Library, Lending Division users in special libraries on the effects of non‐immediate access to journals
Authors: Houghton B. , Prosser C.
Published: February 2008

The authors studied the delay period experienced by users in special libraries while awaiting the arrival of journal requests from the BLLD as a possible drawback to the reduction in journal holdings in favour of increased external borrowing. This paper describes a survey undertaken by questionnaire of the opinions of library users in seven companies. The results show that the delay factor is less significant than supposed by many librarians and that inconvenience to users at present levels of borrowing is minimal.
An Information Broker as a member of a Health Service Planning Unit
Authors: Valdez Maureen
Published: February 2008

A health service strategic planning division had difficulty obtaining information needed to support health care improvement projects, despite the availability of library and data systems. The post of ‘information broker’ was devised and set up as a two‐year experimental project under a special grant; the broker working as a member of the planning team and charged with relating to existing information services and promoting information flows. The workload fell into two main categories: information support to specific planning projects, and information support in general to the planning team, the latter category comprising a current awareness service and the development of structures to provide communication. The broker's services were less effective in the area originally defined by the planners as of their greatest need and more effective in areas where information gaps had not been specially noted. The original concept is now being reshaped.
Access to resources through the British Library Lending Division
Authors: Line Maurice
Published: February 2008

The British Library Lending Division (BLLD) is the main source in the United Kingdom for supplying documents not held locally. The most important features of the system are: the high volume of demand; the fact that all significant serials, reports and English language monographs, between them accounting for the overwhelming majority of demand, are acquired for the central lending stock; and the design of the system for speed of service and low unit cost. The volume of demand is currently about 2,200,000 items a year, growing at over 20 per cent per annum. The BLLD is able to meet about 84 per cent of requests from stock, and an additional 9 per cent are supplied with the help of other libraries. Weaker parts of the system are gradually being strengthened by various means; these include greater access to the copyright libraries and other ‘back‐up’ sources, the photocopying of older serials in the British Library Reference Division and improved lending arrangements with other countries. Detailed figures on supply rates are given. Future problems and developments are considered.
Resources research: Aslib R & D and the future
Authors: Martyn John
Published: February 2008

The work of the Aslib Research and Development Department during the next few years will be chiefly concentrated on problems arising in four specific areas. These are: resource provision, allocation and management; resource sharing and co‐ordination; the relationship between information provision and the needs of specialized user groups in science, social science and technology; and the education of users of information. Examples of projects falling in each of these areas are given. The value of research to the individual information worker and the role of research in improving the information environment is discussed.
Sheffield World Metal Index: an account of its history and present state of development
Authors: Allott Angela M.
Published: February 2008

An account of the practical steps involved in building up, maintaining and exploiting a specialized collection of trade literature, standards and specifications, data compilations, and related material to produce a user‐orientated service (World Metal Index WMI). The origin and scope of the collection is outlined, together with the basic routines of updating (management responsibility, job allocation, delegation and supervision). The problems involved in co‐ordinating input from manufacturers, government organizations, national standards bodies, material users and commercially published sources in many languages are covered. The organization of files, indexing rules, etc. is described. The ‘spin‐offs’ and by‐products of the WMI are indicated. An attempt is made to answer the questions: Is the collection a successful information tool? Does it benefit the user? Finally, possible future developments are mentioned.
Basic bibliographic control: plans for a world system
Authors: Chaplin A.H.
Published: February 2008

A necessary foundation of library and information services is knowledge of what documentary material exists. Since no field of knowledge and no geographical area can generate within itself all the information it needs, a complete and universal record is required. While the creation of such a record at a single centre is a Utopian ideal, improvements in national records and in techniques of international communication have made a worldwide co‐operative system a realistic goal. Under the title ‘Universal Bibliographic Control’ (UBC), IFLA—working in association with Unesco and other bodies—is establishing a programme to promote an international network of bibliographic agencies. Problems to be solved are: on the national level, complete coverage of national output and speed of production of the record; on the international level, standardization of formats and the creation of co‐ordinating machinery. The UBC programme is complementary to that of UNISIST: a future integrated bibliographic and information system might be based on two interrelated categories of records—national records of separate publications, unrestricted in subject‐matter, and international records of contributions to knowledge (whether separate publications or not), limited to particular subject fields.
The future pattern of information services for industry and commerce
Authors: Scarfe David
Published: February 2008

The origins of information and library services in British industry and commerce are not well documented, and are a difficult field of study for the historian: much early activity was spontaneous and informal, and therefore unrecorded, and the consequent difficulties of research in this field are well defined in Margaret Marshall's ‘British industrial libraries before 1939’. A major problem in gaining an overall view of the development of these services is the fact that only success stories are published in the professional press; it would be invidious to single out particular examples for comment, but a number of highly successful services have been summarily dissolved by management decision in the past decade. I have been unable to trace any published study on the causation underlying these decisions, and a vital element is therefore lacking in our appreciation of the past development of information services, but an awareness of previous successes and failures is a necessary condition of any attempt to predict their future.
R and D information services: the role of the Department of Energy
Authors: van Riemsdyk A.J.
Published: February 2008

In this paper I intend to try to explain briefly and in general terms the reasons for there being a Department of Energy. I will follow that by showing why the Department needs to have information about energy R&D and finally how the Department collects and holds information on energy R&D.
Technical information services at the BP Research Centre
Authors: Lee D.G. , Cole P.F.
Published: February 2008

BP Research Centre, Sunbury, is the principal research establishment of the BP Group and about half of BP's world‐wide research is performed there. It was established in 1917 as a ‘two men and a boy’ operation in the basement of a house called ‘Meadhurst’ at Sunbury‐on‐Thames, some 14 miles west of London. From these humble beginnings it has expanded into an operation employing about 1,500 people, about one‐third of whom are graduates in science or engineering.
No slick answers?—library resources to serve the offshore oil industry
Authors: Ardern R.J.
Published: February 2008

The offshore oil industry is making a profound impact on different parts of the British Isles. It is only three years since Scotland advanced into the oil age with the proving of the Forties field, and a similar process may soon follow around the Celtic Sea area. Many difficult decisions and adjustments have to be made (both onshore and offshore) in the fields of employment, planning, the provision of infrastructure, marine engineering, offshore supply and transport. In such a fast‐moving industry information provision is of paramount importance, but the speed of development makes it all the more difficult to achieve. This paper attempts to aid decision making by showing what information is available in published form, and by discussing some of the available sources of unpublished data. The writer's own attempts to fill some of the information gaps are discussed and some basic acquisitions are recommended for anyone starting to build up a collection on offshore oil.
BLIPS: The Building Research Establishment Library Processing System
Authors: Neville H.H. , Elvin P.J.
Published: February 2008

Proposals are presented for specifying a computer system for storing and searching library records in a single library or a group of associated libraries. The system provides for on‐line searching at each library and off‐line production of accessions lists, abstracts bulletins and bibliographies, as well as SDI service. The use of skilled effort is shifted from the in‐put operation to the searching stage by the use of selected natural language keys, but searching for known items is made easier than in more traditional methods by extending the use of post‐coordination to catalogue data.
Computer aspects of the BLIPS system: a discussion
Authors: Vallance L.S.
Published: February 2008

What I would like to do is to survey the field briefly to get the perspective of the problem, to mention some of the problems that may arise, and in that way to initiate a discussion. I shall be grouping my remarks under four headings. First of all under size, magnitude of files, and so on. Secondly, timing, mainly the question of response of the terminals. Thirdly, something about hardware, in particular in relation to the communications aspect. And finally, a brief look at security.
Extended use of the BLIPS system
Authors: Elvin P.J. , Neville H.H.
Published: February 2008

The possibility of using the BOSS system with a controlled language thesaurus is discussed and the ways in which the system could be used for producing journal listings and for storing, indexing and retrieving diagrams and configurations are described.
Patterns of information flow during the innovation process
Authors: Rothwell Roy
Published: February 2008

There is a comprehensive and growing body of empirical evidence, gathered through retrospective studies of innovation attempts, which demonstrates clearly that good communications, with the consequent efficient flow of information both within the innovating organization and between the organization and its environment, is a prime requisite for innovative success. The relative importance of literature and other formal sources of information utilized during innovation, in relation to informal interpersonal sources will be mentioned only briefly since this topic has been discussed at some length elsewhere. This paper represents an attempt to analyse some of the available empirical data which relate to the information seeking habits of innovators in their search for scientific and technological information. It traces the patterns of search through the various phases of the innovation process, discusses the different information seeking habits of scientists and technologists, describe the effect of firm size on the pattern of information search and highlights the necessity of matching the degree of complexity of a message to the level of sophistication of its recipient. Finally it discusses the significance of these findings to those whose task is the management of innovation.
Looking backwards and forwards
Authors: Urquhart D.J.
Published: February 2008

I do not know how many lectures and papers I have produced during my career. Most of them follow the same pattern. Somebody invites me to speak. In a weak moment I accept with but a vague idea about what I will say. As the critical day approaches the subject of my talk becomes even vaguer to me, and then suddenly I become desperate and put something down on paper.
A manual current awareness service at the University of Aston
Authors: Vincent Ida , Seals John H.
Published: February 2008

A manual current awareness service, based on abstracting and indexing journals, and serving ten groups of staff and research students at the University of Aston Library, is described. The service is evaluated in the light of client reaction and feedback obtained from the request service. The relation of the service to other library activities, and possible future developments are discussed. Two sample profiles are given in an appendix.
The effect on an organization of communication with the outside world: the relationship between free flow of information and an organization's effectiveness
Authors: Robertson Andrew
Published: February 2008

We pay lip service to ‘communication’, a concept which came to us from the United States and became fashionable among industrial advisers and a few managers in the 1950s—to the extent that some companies appointed managers of communication. This job appears to have had a variety of specifications, but the incumbents might be summed up generally as a combination of information officer with an internal public relations function. The term ‘public relations’ is no longer of use in describing an organization's relations with the outside world, because PR has assumed overtones suggestive of defensive and selective propaganda, a one‐way flow of ‘image building’ information, rather than the two‐way flow recommended by the communication experts (of course, there is an inward flow, but it amounts to little more than monitoring the media to pick up clues as to the effectiveness of the outward flow).
Information communication and management
Authors: Finniston Montague
Published: February 2008

It is very kind of you to have invited me to give the 8th Aslib Annual Lecture—although it is a wonderment to me on what grounds such a choice was made. I hope this audience does not expect me to inform them of the inner story of a recent public debate—or if you do, that you will not be disappointed in the alternative topic I have chosen for this address.
The contribution of poor communication to innovative failure
Authors: Rothwell R. , Robertson A.B.
Published: February 2008

There now exists a considerable body of empirical evidence which indicates a positive relationship between good and efficient communication and successful industrial innovation. However, in spite of this, many firms still do not take communication seriously and hence fail to take positive steps to promote the flow of information, both throughout the organization and between the organization and its environment. On the contrary, even those firms which do possess established information departments tend to treat the information function as an ancillary operation. As a consequence, in times of economic stringency, the information department is among the first to feel the axe.
A survey of construction industry libraries
Authors: Johnston Jos
Published: February 2008

The majority of industrial libraries are small, and this is particularly true of those in the construction industry. There is therefore a lack of information about actual library practice in this area. This survey was carried out as part of a Ph.D. research project at the University of Aston in Birmingham, the major part of which was concerned with the computerization of the library of Taylor Woodrow Construction Ltd. The survey was done to see how far this library was typical, and whether computerization would be beneficial elsewhere. In this summary of the survey I have concentrated on the general aspects of construction industry libraries, and only briefly discuss computerization.
Distance and distribution: a problem described
Authors: Jenno Maty
Published: February 2008

In this paper, I shall outline the distribution of Commercial Information services in the South West. I shall explain some of the problems these services have in providing a comprehensive range of information. One of the problems is distance within the South West region and in relation to London. These services all share the common difficulties of staffing and restricted budgets.
SCIDOC: a feature card system for retrieval of pharmacology literature
Authors: Bird P.R.
Published: February 2008

Feature card systems are particularly suited to dealing with information pertaining to drugs, diseases, anatomical terms and biological species, for which elements of vocabulary control and hierarchy are useful for information retrieval. In the biomedical field some feature card systems in the UK have been described in some detail; the McClelland system for anaesthesia literature used a deck of about 500 feature cards of 5,000‐hole capacity, and the Project FAIR index to biomedical engineering literature now has sis decks of 1,280 hole capacity feature cards each containing around 300 cards.
Sources for business and commerce in the Department of Printed Books
Authors: Johansson Eve
Published: February 2008

The most significant feature of the Department of Printed Books is that it is almost entirely a general library. It is the library of national deposit, with a general brief to collect material in all fields of knowledge from the rest of the world. There is no specialized acquisitions function for business information, and no reference collection except that for the whole field of the social sciences. The stock is not classified, so that material of concern to commerce and industry is scattered in the general collections, and there are no special catalogues or indexes. This means not only that it is a difficult library to use for those accustomed to other conventions, but also that it is difficult to talk about in so specialized a context as this. The Library's resources are known by the business information community to be considerable; but because they have never been organized for this particular purpose they are very much under‐used. (The set of the electoral registers, used for market research, is probably our best‐known source).
Ground rules for cost‐effectiveness
Authors: Vickers Peter
Published: February 2008

This paper was written in response to an invitation to give a talk on how to make information services cost‐effective. Its basic message is ‘use the systems approach’, but my aim will be to express this in practical rather than abstract terms. It will be based to a large extent on experience gained over the past eight years, from the work of the Aslib Consultancy Service. This service is based on the Aslib R & D Department, and was originally conceived as a means by which some of the results of research could be applied in real life situations. To some extent this intention has been fulfilled: consultancy work does provide opportunities to apply the results of research—but only in a supportive way. The most important asset of our team is the experience we have painfully gained over the years of striking an acceptable balance between idealism and practicality. In particular, we have learned a lot about making systems work within the limitations of the people who operate and use them.
Present and future pressures on service operators
Authors: Martyn John
Published: February 2008

When I was younger, I was never patient with my elders when they would talk about the ‘good old days’ and tell me how much better things were when they were themselves young. Recently, though, I have found myself occasionally being nostalgic about the past; like the first grey hair, this is a disturbing symptom, and I have been trying to pin down what I am really thinking when I say something like, ‘Things were easier ten or twenty years ago’. I would personally sooner be alive now than at any other time—I don't share Gibbon's preference for the age of Diocletian, or the more common nostalgia for the recent days when most of the map was coloured red—and what I think lies at the bottom of any regrets for our dear departed past is a feeling that decision‐making, policy formulation and any similar activity involving making guesses about the future is a more difficult exercise now that it used to be. One reason for this is obviously that things can change more rapidly nowadays—oil costs increase overnight, the pound can dive downwards, governments totter—which is to some extent a function of the increased ease and rapidity of communication, reactions to events in the world being speeded up by telecommunications. Another reason is that we now have very much more information available to us which is of possible relevance to our decision making. These factors influence us to some extent whether we are taking purely personal and domestic decisions, like deciding where to spend the holidays or what to do with our savings, if any, or whether we are deciding how to run our own, or our employer's or the country's business. Two of the factors which are increasingly influencing the operations of secondary service producers are the advent of more rapid and diverse forms of communication, and the constant growth in the volume of information. Why I have been saying this is to show that most of the pressures which affect or will affect secondary services are not specific to those services, but are more general, in that they are pressures which to some extent affect all the parts of the information world and indeed the whole of our present society.
An on‐line system for handling personal data bases on a PDP 11/20 minicomputer
Authors: Leggate P. , Eaglestone B.M. , Jarman R.M. , Norgett M.M. , Williams A.P.
Published: February 2008

Information retrieval is a sequence of selection and discrimination steps, aimed at the production of progressively smaller subsets. A great multitude of documents are prepared for publication by aspiring authors and though editorial control produces some weeding‐out, a high proportion are probably published in one form or another. From this published literature are selected those items to be included in the large indexing and abstracting journals, on the grounds of either quality or subject matter. These publications are then searched by human scanner or computer to select the small minority of bibliographic records which may be of interest to the ultimate user. Then it is the user's turn. He selects from the bibliographic listing a yet smaller number of documents he wishes to view and, finally and occasionally, in a few of the documents he reads, he finds useful information: a datum, an experimental method, the barely discerned inkling of an idea.
The use of national resources to encourage the more effective use of information by industry
Authors: Sweeney G.P.
Published: February 2008

In being presented with the title of this paper by Aslib, it seemed to me that I was in effect being posed two questions:
Key Books in business and management studies: a bibliometric analysis
Authors: Smith Gerry M
Published: February 2008

Traditionally, the specialist subject expertise required of librarians and information workers has been of two types:
Report of the communication games workshop
Authors: Collins Judith , Layzell Ward Patricia
Published: February 2008

On the 19th January twenty‐eight Aslib members arrived at Belgrave Square to participate in an evening meeting called Communication Games: A Workshop, which was led by the authors. The presentation of the meeting in a workshop format was a new departure for Aslib, and initially gave rise to some hesitancy in the group. As the evening progressed and as the games were played, this hesitancy evaporated and the group came together in the sharing and learning which was the point of the meeting.
Comparison of manual and online retrospective searching for agricultural subjects
Authors: Johnston Susan M. , Gray D.E.
Published: February 2008

To investigate the value of externally available computer‐based bibliographic retrieval services in agriculture, 100 retrospective searches in response to real requests for information were carried out by computer. Seventy‐five of these were paralleled using conventional manual methods and the results were analysed and compared for efficiency, cost and staff time required. The databases most frequently used were CAIN (now AGRICOLA), BIOSIS and Chemical Abstracts Condensates (searched online using Lockheed Dialog), and Medline. Online searches took one‐sixth of the staff time required for manual searching and cost much the same. Online searches tended to have higher relative recall and lower precision than manual searches of the same database. The differences in performance are due to the different entry points available in the printed and machine‐readable forms of a database. Detailed knowledge of these will enable a choice to be made of the more efficient method of searching when both manual and online searching of a database is possible. Online searches were well received by users and their use could increase the output of library and information staff engaged in retrospective searching.
Evaluating an in‐house or bought‐in service
Authors: Blick A.R.
Published: February 2008

The Beecham Pharmaceuticals Research Division (BPRD) is that part of Beecham Group concerned with research into ethical products, that is, into drugs which only can be obtained on prescription. The Research Division has a staff of about 1,000. The Information Services Unit serves these staff with their information needs and to do this there are twelve information scientists, four librarians and sixteen assistants. The information budget for salaries, materials, services, etc., totals several hundred thousand pounds. The service offers current awareness via an in‐house bulletin; conventional retrospective searching plus the use of Derwent systems and on‐line searching of the Lockheed, BLAISE and SDC data bases; in‐house documentation via a Master File and WLN chemical structure indexes. The budget figure is quite large but in the pharmaceutical industry information budgets of £1m per annum are known.
Overseas resources funded by government: a world system in the making?
Authors: Judge P.J.
Published: February 2008

It would have been both tidy and convincing to have started this paper with statistical tables showing what resources are funded by governments overseas. If I have not done so, it is both because the figures are not readily available, and the task—taking ‘overseas’ at face value—like the universe, is unbounded. Indeed, as defined for the statistics which show we are entering a post‐industrial Information Society, ‘information’ may cover any activities concerned with the processing of symbols rather than of materials. Even if we restrict the term to the provision of specific services by word of mouth, document or computer output, it is still difficult to draw tight boundaries. The OECD struggled unsuccessfully for ten years to reach international agreement on meaningful and useful definitions for statistics on information; hopefully the recent US compilation of Statistical Indicators of Scientific and Technical Communication, will stimulate further efforts in other countries. There is an enormous and urgent job to be done.
Research at ASLIB 1959–1977
Authors: Taylor Peter J.
Published: February 2008

In beginning its work at the end of the 1950s, the Aslib Research and Development Department inevitably faced the task of identifying the most significant problems for investigation, at the same time having the need to establish appropriate experimental techniques. Most of the projects undertaken since that time have dealt with current problems, and to an extent the advent of new technologies and techniques to the information world (mechanization in the 'sixties, management studies in the early 'seventies, on‐line working and publication problems in more recent years) is reflected in the work reported below. What follows is a complete bibliography of publications by members of the Department from its formation up to the end of 1977.
Should we educate our users?
Authors: Orna Elizabeth
Published: February 2008

This article came about because of an attempt to plan a seminar on user education in special libraries. While there are any number of user‐education studies in educational institutions, there is a singular lack of them in special libraries and industrial information services. Aslib very properly wanted to do something to fill the gap on the practical side, to complement the survey it was sponsoring.
Micropublishing and libraries in the future
Authors: Thomas Peter A.
Published: February 2008

I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. St John, Chapter 21, verse 25.
‘Aboutness’ as a strategy for retrieval in the social sciences
Authors: Swift D.F. , Winn V. , Bramer D.
Published: February 2008

Indexing systems have traditionally been geared to cater for search requests of the form ‘documents about…’. It is far from clear what is meant by the notion ‘about’, but the model that guides indexing is built around it. The procedure is:
Health and Safety Executive Laboratories' Libraries
Authors: Pantry Sheila
Published: February 2008

Under the terms of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) was formed on 1st October 1974. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) was established on 1st January 1975 as the operating arm of the Commission. The Executive includes six Inspectorates and the Employment Medical Advisory Service (EMAS). The Inspectorates are Agriculture Inspectorate, Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate, Explosives Inspectorate, Factories Inspectorate, Mines and Quarries Inspectorate and Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. EMAS acts as the medical arm of the Executive and is the channel of medical advice to the Commission and the Inspectorates within the Executive, HSE has a large Information and Advisory Services Branch (DIAS) which includes among other things the Library and Translation Services. The library organization, although integrated on a broad basis, operates in two independent functional areas—services in support of the research laboratories and those to staff in Head Office and field organizations. The Executive carries out a considerable volume of research in its Health and Safety Laboratories (HSL). This paper describes the development of the library services in support of research in HSL. The laboratories, with a total staff of approximately 500, are located at Sheffield, Buxton and Cricklewood (London). Each laboratory has a library, the main one being located in Sheffield.
Government statistical information
Authors: Mower Brian
Published: February 2008

This paper is limited to the subject of government statistics, which is far from typical of the problems attached to the preparation and marketing of commercial services. However, the Government Statistical Service is probably the most important single source of primary information and it is vital that the Service be explained. The theme for discussion is to what extent users get the service they expect and to what extent their expectations are too low.
Career patterns and mobility in the library/ information field
Authors: Slater Margaret
Published: February 2008

Why investigate mobility? Particularly, why investigate it now? Results from my study on mobility, career patterns, and factors affecting, suggest that what the profession seems to be suffering from at the moment is immobility. Graphic descriptions were given of closures, cut‐backs and frozen posts, and of an undesirably low level of staff movement to other services and organizations because of the current economic and employment situation. Over‐producdon of library/information graduates and diploma holders in terms of jobs available, and the frustrated immobility of those unable to find any work in their chosen profession, were also mentioned by our respondents.
The presentation of library accounts
Authors: Peacock P.G.
Published: February 2008

In his paper ‘Accounting information in universities’ Sims draws attention to the inadequacy of university financial information systems. He argues that the way in which universities present financial information emphasizes the university's function as a steward of public funds, but he does not provide the data on which good management decisions can be made.