bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
LITHOPRINTING FOR REPRODUCING RESEARCH MATERIALS IN LIMITED‐COPY EDITIONS
Authors: EDWARDS J.W.
Published: January 2008

The use of the photo‐offset or photolithographic printing process for reproducing research, reference, and educational materials in limited quantities has been demonstrated conclusively during the period of the war.
A HIGHLY ORGANIZED MEDICAL LIBRARY
Authors: THOMSON DAVID
Published: January 2008

The usual medical library consists largely of bound volumes of medical journals. The volumes of each journal are kept together and are arranged in chronological order.
INFORMAL ARCHITECTURAL NOTES ON THE PLANNING OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
Authors: REES VERNER O.
Published: January 2008

The difficulties that architects and librarians have to face in this subject will arise, not in the enunciation of guiding principles, but in their application. For on every occasion when they have to collaborate special conditions arise owing to the circumstances of the creation and growth of the particular university with which they are dealing.
THE PLANNING AND EQUIPMENT OF LIBRARIES IN RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONS AND INDUSTRIAL CONCERNS
Authors: FULLMAN B.
Published: January 2008

This paper has been prepared at very short notice. When I was asked to do it I at once examined all the reports of the Aslib Conferences. To my great surprise I found that until the 1945 (20th) Conference very little mention had been made of it. However, last year two very informative papers appeared: ‘The Planning and equipment of research libraries and information bureaux’, by E.J. Carter, and ‘Some notes on the planning of research libraries’, by S. R. Pierce. These two papers and the discussion on them deserve careful study: the present contribution is really supplementary to them.
SYMPOSIUM ON ‘THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AND THE FUTURE OF ITS CATALOGUE’, BY THEODORE BESTERMAN
Authors: HENKLE HERMAN H.
Published: January 2008

It was a great pleasure to read your lucid exposition of the problem of our catalog and very profitable to reflect on your thoughtful solution. Your careful statement requires an equally careful analysis. Let me attempt one:
THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL REPORTS
Authors: THOMPSON LAWRENCE S.
Published: January 2008

After the European War came to an end it became apparent that there were literally hundreds of thousands of scientific research documents which had been written both by Allied and by Axis scientists but which had never been generally circulated due to their confidential character. On 12 June 1945 President Harry Truman issued an executive order charging the Office of the Publication Board, U.S. Department of Commerce, with dissemination of this information.
THE DOCUMENTATION OF MADAGASCAR
Authors: HARDYMAN J.T.
Published: January 2008

Madagascar is undoubtedly a country of great interest, yet it is often thought that there is very little literature on the subject. The fact is, however, that the amount is considerable, as is shown by the number of the last item in the standard bibliography of Madagascar—14,978.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES FOR CONTEMPORARY FRENCH LITERATURE
Authors: BENN T.V.
Published: January 2008

These notes review the present situation (July 1947) in the current bibliography of French literature. The sources discussed are (a) the main bibliographies which periodically announce recent books, and (b) recent bibliographies incorporating the latest books. Each bibliography is described in turn at a later stage.
BIBLIOGRAPHY IN SOUTH AFRICA
Authors: HOLDSWORTH H.
Published: January 2008

The Report of the Inter‐departmental Committee on the Libraries of the Union of South Africa of 1937 resembled closely in substance and in spirit the Report on New Zealand libraries of Munn and Barr in 1934, and that of Munn and Pitt on Australian libraries in 1935, a resemblance arising no doubt from a similarity of historical circumstances within the three dominions: new countries with small populations; the institution, to meet the needs of small reading circles in scattered areas, of libraries like those of nineteenth‐century England; the preoccupation of the peoples with the more immediate demands of living and with the exploitation of natural resources. These old institutions have tended to linger, being private or semi‐private, less susceptible to change and becoming more and more anachronistic, less able to play the part expected of a modern library, while the new have developed slowly and only here and there as yet will they bear comparison with the best in the older countries. These reports of the thirties witness the fact that the majority of public libraries were ‘subscription’ libraries of nineteenth‐century pattern, small in size and lacking in quality of stock; that the largest municipal libraries and the university libraries were insufficiently stocked, the chief strength reposing in the national libraries. And the reasons: lack of money or, more truthfully, the withholding of money needed for library and bibliographical purposes, itself the outcome partly of public and official apathy and procrastination, and partly of ignorance of the advantages derivable from modern library and bibliographical services; the paucity of trained staff to teach and by practical example to spread ideas and increase understanding; in the case of Australia and South Africa, the vastness of the territory to be covered and the sparsity, of settlement involving intricate organization and considerable costs, and in South Africa the existence of two European racial groups and consequent bilingualism which often call for parallel collections. A decade has, of course, elapsed since Munn and Pitt wrote that ‘most Australians have had no contact with a progressive and complete library system and know nothing of its functions and facilities’ and since the South African committee reported that ‘in library development the Union of South Africa lags behind the rest of the civilised world’; and much has been accomplished in the meantime, but the South African condemnation is still broadly justified, though there are individual libraries to which it does not apply.
CAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGES: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE FRENCH TRANSLATIONS, 1772–1800
Authors: ROBERTS STANLEY
Published: January 2008

The bibliography of Cook's voyages is both lengthy and complicated, and, in spite of their far‐reaching importance, their historical and geographical significance, and their considerable literary influence, it has never yet been attempted in its entirety. ‘L'immortel Cook’ was honoured almost as much in France as he was in England, but no satisfactory account exists of the French translations of his works. Sir Maurice Holmes's Introduction to the bibliography of Captain James Cook, R.N., London, Edwards, 1936, is excellent for the original editions, but does not attempt to include translations. Of great value, too, is the Bibliography of Captain James Cook, R.N., F.R.S., circumnavigator, published in 1928 by the Public Library of New South Wales. This is the catalogue of what must have been a remarkably fine exhibition to celebrate the bicentenary of Cook's birth, but it does not, of course, pretend to include items which were not available for display. The only other bibliography specifically devoted to Cook is the one by James Jackson prepared for the centenary of Captain Cook's death and published in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, 1879. This must be used with great caution. It has the appearance of having been compiled from entries sent in by various owners and put together without sufficient examination. At all events, while it naturally contains a very large number of French editions, many of them appear twice or even three times in slightly different disguises.
CO‐ORDINATION OF INFORMATION
Authors: DITMAS E.M.R.
Published: January 2008

The burden of recorded information is almost as old as man's habit of making records—witness the cry of Ecclesiastes, ‘of the making of many books there is no end!’ No doubt also man has always wistfully dreamed of some super‐organization which would relieve him from the labour of bibliographical research, necessary nevertheless if he is to be sure that his contribution to knowledge is original. These bibliographical searches became more onerous as, with the passage of centuries, man's recorded knowledge increased, and the problem grew rapidly more urgent with the development of science and technology during the last two centuries. The scholar's leisured pace could no longer satisfy the demands of industry; the command of information—printed information—was now one of the keys to power and to wealth; the lack of it might be disastrous to a wide range of interests.
BUSINESS RECORDS AS A SOURCE OF ECONOMIC HISTORY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THEIR SELECTIVE PRESERVATION IN LIBRARIES
Authors: Chaloner W.H.
Published: January 2008

During the last thirty years there has been an increased use of business records as a source for the writing of economic history. Before 1920 a great deal of our knowledge of British economic life during the preceding 250 years came from the archives of government departments, the reports of parliamentary committees of inquiry, and the blue books of Royal Commissions. Such material inevitably conveys a distorted picture, because governments in the past did not usually consider themselves called upon to interfere in economic life, except for the purpose of raising money or in order to investigate and endeavour to correct serious social maladjustments.
BRADFORD'S LAW OF SCATTERING
Authors: VICKERY B.C.
Published: January 2008

DURING the course of an analysis of some 1,600 periodical references, borrowed by the library of Butterwick Research Laboratories from outside libraries, the results of the analysis were compared with studies on the scatter of articles in periodicals carried out at the Science Library. These were originally published in the journal Engineering, vol. cxxxvii, p. 85, 26 Jan. 1934, and were recently summarized by S. C. Bradford in his book, Documentation (London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, Ltd., 1948). A certain misunderstanding became evident in the algebraic analysis carried out by Bradford and his collaborators, further consideration of which has proved of interest.
THE BULGARIAN BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INSTITUTE
Authors: HORNE J.C.W.
Published: January 2008

THE recently founded Bulgarian Bibliographical Institute has produced three publications of great interest. The first of these, by Dr. T. Borov, the Director of the Institute and of the National Library of Sofia, Why do we need a Bulgarian Bibliographical Institute?, was published in 1941, before the foundation of the Institute, and, as its sub‐title indicates, is ‘an address to friends’. In it Dr. Borov reviewed briefly the position of Bulgarian bibliography and set forth what he considered should be the aims of the Institute.
LIBRARY ACCESSIONS: SOME QUESTIONS OF SELECTION AND COVERAGE AND THE FARMINGTON PLAN
Authors: HUTTON R.S.
Published: January 2008

THE problem of wise selection of new books is always one of difficulty, whatever the type of library may be. Apart from financial restrictions, the library usually limits its acquisitions to what it considers to be the immediate requirements of its readers and what it can foretell of its future scope. The actual selection is frequently left to the judgement of the library staff with occasional suggestions by readers.
SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN CATALOGUING IN THE U.S.A.
Authors: JOLLEY L.
Published: January 2008

THE last ten years have seen a remarkable revival of interest in cataloguing in the United States. As late as 1935 the veteran cataloguer, J. C. M. Hanson, was complaining that cataloguing no longer attracted the same attention as the financial, sociological, or even mechanical aspects of librarianship. A few years later the situation had completely changed, and since 1940 the problem of cataloguing has become one of the chief subjects for discussion amongst American librarians. The immediate occasion for this revival of interest was the publication of the preliminary edition of the American revision of the Anglo‐American code. Work on this had begun in 1930, but for the first few years the work of revision was left entirely to cataloguers and treated as a matter exclusively of technical and specialist interest. Then, just before publication of the preliminary edition, as an American cataloguer ruefully remarks, it occurred to some administrators and a few cataloguers that the time was ripe for a review of the whole of current cataloguing theory and practice.
EXTERNAL MEMORY AND RESEARCH
Authors: RANGANATHAN S.R. , PERRY J.W.
Published: January 2008

Summary: Team‐work needed by modern research; need for division of labour and externalized memory; emergence of the library profession in relation to recalling memory and of the profession of the data‐specialist in relation to correlating memory; differences in the function and training of the two professions; factors which militate against their being distinguished; the need for both professions to have a common classification technique with special reference to punched cards and similar machinery for search.
A SYNTHESIS ON ‘MICROFILM’ AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Authors: BORN LESTER K.
Published: January 2008

The writer of an article for a professional journal always is confronted with a dilemma: unless he chooses deliberately to be obscure or provocative, he must select a title which is descriptive of the substance that follows, and at the same time he is not without obligation to keep the title within the limits of a title. The title of this paper is a compromise. Under it I shall assemble information on the policies with respect to microfilm and microfilming, the planning which precedes filming and the administration of the result, actual operations, the administration of microfilms and services connected with them, together with something of the historical background for the present.
NOTATIONAL SYMBOLS IN CLASSIFICATION
Authors: VICKERY B.C.
Published: January 2008

A notation, says H. E. Bliss, is ‘a system of marks or symbols in some order, denoting terms or members of a series or system of things’. For the purposes of classification, he continues, a notation ‘is requisite to maintain the systematic order in schedules and on shelves, and to locate them in this order’. The notation is thus correlative, complementary, and subsidiary to the classified order itself. The classified order reflects, well or ill, the real order of tilings; notation preserves and mechanizes this classified order. ‘The classification is the main thing, and the notation, however real its service, does not make the classification, though it may mar it’.
UREA — FORMALDEHYDE RESIN AS A VEHICLE FOR SEMI‐PERMANENT INSECTICIDAL AND FUNGICIDAL COATINGS ON BOOKBINDINGS AND BOOKCASES
Authors: BRACEY P. , BARLOW F.
Published: January 2008

AT the request of the Crown Agents for the Colonies investigations were made into the possibility of improving the Standard Specification No. 40 (revised February 1937) on methods for protecting the bindings of books from attacks by insects and fungi.
AMERICAN TECHNICAL REPORTS
Authors: WOOLSTON JOHN E.
Published: January 2008

It was estimated in 1952 that the United States was then spending more than 3,000 million dollars a year on research and development. Over half of this was paid for by the Federal Government and, more particularly, two‐fifths of it by the Department of Defense. Much of the research made possible with these tremendous government funds is of a fundamental character and, in the military sense, unclassified; a further large proportion is in the nature of applied science or development and has far‐reaching industrial significance. The scientific work carried out for the Federal Government, either in its own laboratories or under contract in American industry and universities, is thus of interest to scientists and technologists everywhere. The sponsoring agency which pays for the work naturally has control over the distribution of the scientific information which results from it. The international scientific community has no prescriptive right to this information, but fortunately the agencies concerned do make much of it available.
NORWAY'S DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS ON FAMILY PROBLEMS
Authors: ELIOT THOMAS D.
Published: January 2008

In the U.S.A. we would call it the ‘Bible Belt’. A wisecracker in Oslo might call it den Morke Stripen, ‘the Dark Strip’. It is a strip of counties down the south‐west coast and around the south‐east coast of Norway, the stronghold of the Christian People's Party and of the powerful volunteer organization of fundamentalists, Indremisjonen (the Inner Mission). In the valleys and coasts of Norway the traditional Lutheran family patterns persist—patriarchal but not authoritarian—and provide a background of stability in the families of modern industrial and more worldly Oslo. There are few divorces in the provincial areas.
RESOURCES FOR ITALIAN STUDIES
Authors: SPEIGHT K.
Published: January 2008

The first problem is to assemble the works of Pucci; for there is no complete edition. His writings, some still unpublished, are scattered in a large number of manuscripts and these contain many variants, resulting from the popular nature of his verse, for much of it was meant to be recited in the streets and squares of his native town and in the oral tradition it has been considerably changed and modified. The Pucci manuscripts, with the exception of four (one in the Bibliothèque Nationale and three in the Bodleian), are to be found in various libraries in Italy, and editors and compilers of anthologies have taken material from them—a bit here and a bit there—in a haphazard way, printing what suited their purpose and often consulting only one of many manuscripts. Consequently there are different versions of some poems and few are edited critically, though the publication last year of Professor Sapegno's anthology Poeti minori del trecento with its 117 pages devoted to Pucci has remedied this state of affairs for some of the most important. The only collection of Pucci's verse—if we discount a group of sonnets and a sonnet sequence, both published by A. D'Ancona—is that of F. Ferri in La poesia popolare in A. Pucci (1909), and this is a very incomplete and uncritical work; but as it includes many poems not found elsewhere, it is essential for reference. Pucci's work in print must therefore be sought in many places: in F. Ferri (op. cit.), in anthologies, in periodicals, in editions of single or of two or three poems, and in many rare publications—often per nozze and therefore particularly difficult to come by, because of the few copies printed.
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MUSIC BIBLIOGRAPHY
Authors: HOPKINSON CECIL
Published: January 2008

Before I arrive at discussing the fundamentals of music bibliography I think we should take a very close look at the word ‘bibliography’ and make sure that we know what it really means. In countless books and dictionaries I have looked up the definition, and the general consensus of opinion is that it may have two meanings. Firstly, a list of books relating to a given subject or author and, secondly, the careful and accurate description of certain books, either by an author or on a specific subject, with literal transcriptions of the title‐pages, sufficient information for identification between one edition or issue and another, size, gatherings, pages, measurements, and so forth. This is a fact of which I need not remind a company of librarians, but I want to make a clear distinction between the two forms that a bibliography may have. Personally, I do not care for the first meaning at all and can never stretch my imagination so far as to flatter a mere list of books by calling it a bibliography. It is not a bibliography at all, it is a checklist, a simple list of books for guidance to the reader wanting to refer to other books on the same subject or, alternatively, by the same author. In Mr. Arundell Esdaile's A student's manual of bibliography (Allen & Unwin, 1931) all such are called ‘List of Books’, and this, I maintain, is the correct heading. A bibliography is something far larger, more involved, intricate, and detailed. The new Grove uses the word ‘bibliography’ for a list of books about a composer, and a list of works composed by the composer is designated ‘Catalogue of Works’.
RESEARCH PROJECTS IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Authors: Bray Robert
Published: January 2008

The following article was prepared by Mr. Robert Bray, Chief of the Technical Information Division, Library of Congress, in co‐operation with several members of the Library's staff. The views presented herein are the author's and may not be necessarily statements of the Library of Congress policy.
SOME PROBABILITY PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE MARKING OF CODES INTO THE SUPERIMPOSITION FIELD
Authors: OROSZ G. , TAKÁCS L.
Published: January 2008

We deal here with some problems of superimposed random coding that arise when marking codes into the codefield. Our investigations are concerned with a general model. Systems used in practice are special cases of this, and may be deduced from it by making appropriate simplifying assumptions. We give exact formulas for the distribution of the marked sites in a codefield and for the distribution of multiple marking of a site. These results are obtained by applying a general theorem in probability due to K. Jordan. Some acquaintance with superimposed random coding and knowledge of basic combinatorial and probability theory are assumed.
NOTATIONAL SYMBOLS IN CLASSIFICATION
Authors: VICKERY B.C.
Published: January 2008

In Part II of this series of papers (this Journal, vol. 12, no. 2,1956, pp. 73–87), I urged that to ‘obtain a quantitative understanding of the relationships between brevity of symbol and style of notation, it is necessary to construct a series of model notations in which only one feature is varied at a time’. I then compared the lengths of two styles of ordinal notation—‘enumerative’ notation such as that of Bliss or the U.D.C., which does not use distinctive main‐class symbols, and what I called ‘faceted’ notation such as that of Ranganathan, which does use such symbols. (I would now prefer to call the latter ‘labelled’ notation.)
THE WORK OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS FOR DOCUMENTATION
Authors: NORTHEDGE F.S.
Published: January 2008

Between the two wars the League of Nations through its Intellectual Co‐operation Organization sought to improve intellectual relations, as they were then called, between the countries of the world. This sphere of activity lacked any precise definition, but in practice the Organization covered much the same ground that its successor, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, does today. The structure of the League body, however, was strikingly different from that of Unesco, and in some respects the same is true of the methods by which it worked. But this does not lessen the importance of taking into account the experience of this much‐neglected body (this article being more concerned with the field of documentation) for understanding how Unesco came to be and perhaps for evaluating its work.
A PERMANENT BINDING RECORD FOR PERIODICALS
Authors: Robinson Mary
Published: January 2008

The preparation of periodicals for binding, and the making of the necessary records, takes a great deal of time. The Periodicals Department of the University of London Library (which sends more than 2,000 volumes of periodicals to be bound every year) felt that this time could be greatly reduced if a permanent binding record were made for each periodical which was regularly bound.
SWEDISH CATALOGUES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF PERIODICALS
Authors: Björkbom C.
Published: January 2008

Ib her article about catalogues and bibliographies of periodicals in the September 1958 issue of the Journal of Documentation, Muriel E. Hammond writes (p. 127): ‘It has not been possible to locate all the Scandinavian bibliographies known to have been published.’ She cites from Denmark three publications, from Finland two, from Norway three, but from Sweden only one. This is a pity, because Sweden can show several important union lists and bibliographies of periodicals—more in fact than the other Scandinavian countries—and, what is more important, some of these raise some fundamental questions regarding union catalogues in general. This is why I should here like to give some information supplementary to her article.
EXPERIENCE IN THE USE OF UNIT CONCEPT CO‐ORDINATE INDEXING APPLIED TO TECHNICAL REPORTS
Authors: Johnson A.
Published: January 2008

This paper is not intended to be a dissertation on indexing, but rather a factual account of a problem involving the retrieval of information and how it was solved.
A DECADE OF STANDARDIZING IN DOCUMENTATION
Authors: LLOYD G.A.
Published: January 2008

An attempt is made to give a general picture of standardization and standards in documentation and related fields during the post‐war years: what standards are and how they are prepared nationally and internationally; what has been done and is being done by the national standardizing bodies and Technical Committee 46 (Documentation) of the International Organization for Standardization [ISO]; and finally a brief note on the extent of their adoption, and future work to be done.
FOREIGN BOOK PROCUREMENT
Authors: GIBB I.P.
Published: January 2008

The Farmington Plan, despite much varied criticism, has, as Robert L. Talmadge has written, ‘repeatedly been cited as one of the most important, most enlightened, and hopeful instances of library co‐operation in the history of American libraries’. The history of its establishment and development, together with the details of its operation, is set out in the Farmington Plan handbook by Edwin E. Williams. It is not necessary to repeat that information here, but it is perhaps useful to quote the opening paragraph of Chapter 1 which distils the spirit of the plan very succinctly: ‘The Farmington Plan is an experiment in specialization by voluntary agreement among American research libraries. Its objective is to make sure that at least one copy of each new foreign book and pamphlet that might reasonably be expected to interest a research worker in the United States will be acquired by an American library, promptly listed in the Union Catalogue at the Library of Congress, and made available by interlibrary loan or photographic reproduction.’ The first acquisitions were of books published in 1948; in 1957 it was decided by the Association of Research Libraries that the purposes, scope, and results of the plan should be re‐examined in the light of the experience of the first ten years. The resultant survey was presented at the Midwinter Annual Meeting of ARL in January 1959, where its main conclusions were adopted. These involve, briefly, the continuing responsibility of ARL for the Farmington Plan, the extension of the Farmington Plan on a world‐wide basis—the Farmington Plan Committee to be responsible for this in co‐ordination with area committees—provision of funds for an office and research assistance for the Farmington Plan, the overhaul of procurement methods, a survey of the adequacy of periodical holdings, more duplication of imports, and propaganda to stress the national importance of the Farmington Plan. It has been described by its co‐author, Robert Vosper, in his paper at the 1959 Aslib Conference, and it is not proposed to repeat what he said then on the organization of the survey.
THE SLIDE COLLECTION AT LIVERPOOL SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
Authors: HAVARD‐WILLIAMS P. , WATSON STELLA A.
Published: January 2008

In 1955 it was proposed that the Library of the University of Liverpool School of Architecture (which is administered by the University Library) should start a collection of 2 in. by 2 in. slides (black and white, and coloured) which would be limited to a working collection of 15,000 slides. The new collection was organized as part of the work of the assistant librarian in charge, but a slide assistant was also appointed to carry out some of the photographic work under the supervision of a lecturer in the school and to assist in the routine work involved in cataloguing the slides.
COVERAGE BY ABSTRACTING JOURNALS OF CONFERENCE PAPERS
Authors: HANSON C.W. , JANES MARIAN
Published: January 2008

The value of the reports of scientific conferences, congresses, and symposia, published as separate volumes, has been questioned on several grounds. It has been alleged that the papers are not adequately refereed, that some have been published before, that some do not report original work, and that many are not noted in abstracting journals and are, therefore, not easily traced in retrospective searches.
RELATIVE COSTS OF LETTERPRESS AND TYPEWRITER SETTING
Authors: O'DONNELL B.I.
Published: January 2008

It is, I think, easier to understand the rather complex relationships that exist between the costs of letterpress and typewriter setting if one starts by examining the way in which the two systems operate.
QUARTERLY DOCUMENTATION SURVEY
Authors: of the ASLIB RESEARCH DEPARTMENT members
Published: January 2008

The aim of this project was to devise and put into practice a system that would permit publication of an index (the Index Medicus) of greater coverage, currency, and ease of use than the previous Current List of Medical Literature, published by the National Library of Medicine. The latter was the largest indexing service of a specialized subject anywhere in the world, 1,600 journals being indexed regularly every month. Further expansion of the Current List was impossible without considerably speeding up the collating and numbering of the entries for each issue and the hand‐mounting of all entry slips on page‐boards to be sent to the printers. These operations could not begin until all the material for a month's issue had been collected and a twenty‐four‐hour timetable for these processes had already been introduced to reduce the delay to the minimum. Mechanization was clearly necessary.
THE CHALLENGE OF INFORMATION RETRIEVAL
Authors: FARRADANE J.
Published: January 2008

Information retrieval is now fully recognized as an urgent and ever‐growing problem. Our increasing knowledge threatens to become inaccessible and hence unknowable. Two great conferences have alerted the scientific world to the danger and have attempted to particularize the problems. Many workers in different fields have made claims for ‘systems’ as solutions, others, more cautious, are testing systems, and some are even carrying out work dignified by the name ‘research’. All these activities seem painfully haphazard, and little progress has been made; there are no clear lines of advance for the future. Such theoretical approaches as have been made are very elementary and their validity is much disputed. Surveys of current work are now providing a valuable aid to co‐ordination of effort, and yet it seems that most investigators are sticking to their own particular hunches and gimmicks and are ignorant of, or ignoring, the work of others. These are harsh strictures, and need supporting evidence; even then, destructive criticism, by itself, is a disservice to progress, and some constructive effort is needed. I shall therefore attempt first a review of the present position, and then, however inadequately, put forward some suggestions. There is little else that can be done in our present state of groping in the darkness before the dawn.
THE TDCK‐COMPACT SYSTEM
Authors: KOEKKOEK M. , SCHÜLLER J.A.
Published: January 2008

TDCK uses a combination of uniterms and descriptors for its information retrieval system. In order to index two series of about twenty thousand documents each per year, a punched card with twenty thousand positions has been designed. In each series about eight thousand uniterms are used to describe the documents.
TYPES OF USE AND USER IN INDUSTRIAL LIBRARIES: SOME IMPRESSIONS
Authors: SLATER M.
Published: January 2008

One of the current projects of the Aslib Research Department is a questionnaire survey of the use made of special library/information units in the fields of science and technology. It is hoped that this investigation will reveal typical behaviour patterns in definable groups of users; in other words, may make it possible to ‘classify’ users of special libraries, and to predict their needs with reasonable accuracy. Such information should prove useful to organizations about to set up new information services or to reorganize existing services. The aim of this article is not to give the results of the Aslib survey in digest form, but to describe some qualitative aspects of the survey. These aspects include personal impressions of the Aslib investigator who visited the libraries concerned, trends that were observed, and questionnaire data that were verified or qualified by direct observation.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CATALOGUING PRINCIPLES I. ORGANIZATION
Authors: CHAPLIN A.H.
Published: January 2008

The International Conference on Cataloguing Principles (ICCP), which was held in Paris in October 1961 under the auspices of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), succeeded in arriving at an agreement which was acceptable to the great majority of those present and which has become the basis for subsequent work on the revision of cataloguing codes in many countries. The separate clauses of the agreement, with one exception, were approved by votes varying from unanimity to a majority of forty‐four to fourteen, the exception being a clause of which alternative versions, differing in emphasis rather than substance, received respectively thirty‐four and twenty‐five out of a possible sixty‐three votes.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CATALOGUING PRINCIPLES II. THOUGHTS AFTER PARIS
Authors: JOLLEY L.
Published: January 2008

The International Conference on Cataloguing Principles was held after more than a decade of widespread and intensive study of cataloguing theory and practice. Only in the two periods preceding the formulation of Panizzi's Rules and the Joint Code have cataloguing problems bulked so large in the discussions of librarians and never have so many professional minds given so much time to the study of these problems. It is disappointing that after so much effort the practical results of all these labours are still in the future and that whilst we wait for a new code, thousands of admittedly unsatisfactory entries are made each year in thousands of library catalogues.
LIBRARY LITERATURE READ BY ASLIB CONFERENCE ATTENDERS
Authors: HANSON C.W. , TILBURY PATRICIA
Published: January 2008

To what extent do special librarians and information workers read the literature of their own profession? What use do they make of it? Which journals do they read? Which books do they consult?
HUMAN RATS
Authors: URQUHART D.J.
Published: January 2008

On a Monday morning forty or more bags of mail will arrive at the National Lending Library; half of this mail will be returned loans and half new publications, mainly serials, from 109 countries. The fact that the volume of returned loans and the volume of new publications are about equal should be noted. It means that on average each piece of new literature we receive is used once in its lifetime. Some publications of course are used many times; so many are not used at all. The trouble is that we cannot tell the sheep from the goats.
STUDENT ATTITUDES TO THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY: A SURVEY AT SOUTHAMPTON UNIVERSITY
Authors: LINE MAURICE B.
Published: January 2008

A good deal is now known about the use made by students of university libraries, notably from the surveys carried out by Leeds University Library in 1957 and 1960. Statistics of use, however, will not by themselves indicate how good a library is, whether as a bookstock, a building, or an administrative department. How adequate is the bookstock? How fully is it being exploited? How important are physical and personal elements? These are questions librarians are continually asking themselves, but they are also questions readers could be asked directly or indirectly.
CONSIDERATIONS ON BOOK PROVISION FOR UNDERGRADUATES IN BRITISH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
Authors: BOWYER T.H.
Published: January 2008

The extent to which university libraries should provide curricular books for undergraduate readers has long been a matter of debate among both librarians and university teachers in this country. The debate continues. Over the years it has become more diffuse as new elements emerge for consideration and old ones are modified. For example, academic paperbacks were of less account ten years ago than they are now and the social background and habits of students have changed considerably over, say, the last thirty years. But probably the most significant variable of all has been the increasing size and complexity of universities themselves. The aim of these notes is to help clear the way for further discussion by surveying some of the factors involved in the provision of books for undergraduates in the libraries of British universities and the attitudes of librarians and academic staff towards these factors.
PRINCIPLES FOR A UNIVERSAL SYSTEM OF CLASSIFICATION BASED ON CERTAIN FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS AND AN OUTLINE OF A VARIANT ADAPTED TO TECHNOLOGY
Authors: WAHLIN EJNAR
Published: January 2008

In the debate on classification schemes there are, essentially, two conflicting groups, those who hold by the UDC system and those who do not. The latter group is on the whole, critical, not only of UDC but of hierarchical universal schemes in general.
SCIENCE, GOVERNMENT, AND INFORMATION
Authors: COBLANS HERBERT
Published: January 2008

The conjunction of these three terms no longer shocks: a post‐war generation accepts it as quite natural. Yet a mere twenty‐five years ago, when Bernal's The social function of science appeared, it had almost a subversive quality for most scientists. This is a measure of the profound change which the large‐scale application of science to war, to providing energy in abundance and to exploring space has brought about. How deeply the United States Government is involved becomes clear when one realizes that it spent over eight thousand million dollars on research and development in 1960, which is about 10 per cent of the federal budget. (According to recent OECD estimates British expenditure is comparable, since in 1962 Britain spent about 2·5 per cent of her gross national product on research and development as against 3 per cent in the USA.) Thus increasingly and inevitably governments are concerning themselves with documentation and the communication of scientific information.
PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE GRAPHIC REPRODUCTION OF MIXED SCRIPTS
Authors: HARRISON J.T.
Published: January 2008

The dissemination of information by the printed word has reached a stage of development where the cost of mass literature is low enough to provide for mass readership. In common with other mass‐production industries, the total cost of the product can be split into two major items—preparatory cost and actual unit production cost.
SUBJECT HEADING AND FACET ANALYSIS
Authors: RANGANATHAN S.R.
Published: January 2008

After establishing the terminology, shows how the choice of the name of the subject of a document and the rendering of the name in the heading of the specific subject entry can be got by facet analysis based on postulates and principles. After showing that subject headings constitute an artificial language, points out that using facet analysis for subject heading does not amount to using class number. Marks out the area for an objective statistical survey of sought heading for subject entry. Calls on Council for Library Resources Incorporated to provide for this project.
CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Authors: WHITROW MAGDA
Published: January 2008

As a discipline, the history of science is comparatively young. Although Baden‐Powell's Historical view of the progress of the physical and mathematical sciences from the earliest ages to the present time and Whewell's History of the inductive sciences from the earliest to the present times, both pioneer works in the field, were published in 1834 and 1837 respectively, the history of science as a subject in its own right may be said to have only come into existence in this century. Interest in the history of individual sciences, particularly mathematics and medicine, began much earlier and quite a few periodicals devoted to them were inaugurated during the last century. On the other hand, most of the periodicals dealing with the history of science as a whole were begun during the last two decades and only a few go back to the beginning of this century. The first volume of Mitteilungen zur Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften was published in Leipzig in 1902; Archiv für die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik followed in 1909, and Rivista di Storia (critica) delle Scienze mediche e naturali in 1910. Isis, originally subtitled Revue consacrée à l'histoire de la science (now An international review devoted to the history of science and its cultural influences), was founded in 1912 by George Sarton, the first number appearing in March 1913. It began its life in Belgium, but after the invasion of that country moved with its first editor to the United States. Volume 2, begun in June 1914, was completed in September 1919. From the beginning an international review, it changed its ‘editorial language’, as it were, from French to English in 1920, but it continued to publish articles and papers in the main European languages. From the first issue, one of its principal features was a bibliography of the literature of the history of science.
COMPUTERS AND CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS
Authors: FREEMAN ROBERT R.
Published: January 2008

Published experiences dealing with the use of data processing equipment in conjunction with classification systems, particularly the UDC, are reviewed. Earlier conclusions, generalized from experience with punched card equipment, were too pessimistic. Difficulties in handling UDC notation in computer systems and methods for overcoming them are discussed. Ways in which computers can aid in studying, improving, and using classification systems are discussed. Experience at Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts is cited.
LEWIS'S LENDING LIBRARY
Authors: BOOTHBY F.
Published: January 2008

It has been said that the founding of the London Library may have owed something to Carlyle's dissatisfaction with service in the reading room of the British Museum, and more particularly to the fact that books could not be taken away for home reading.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC COUPLING
Authors: MARTYN JOHN
Published: January 2008

With the arrival of the Science Citation Index on the bibliographic scene, interest is developing in the extent to which relationships between published papers are suggested by the citations which they contain.
THE ASM INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEM: AFTER CRANFIELD
Authors: HYSLOP MARJORIE R.
Published: January 2008

The ASM Information Retrieval System is currently in process of redesign to incorporate major refinements and improvements resulting from five years of operating experience as well as experience and research of others in the field. Principles and methodology underlying these changes are explored for various components of this system, principally vocabulary, links and roles, and computer hardware and programming. The major change is from semantic code to thesaurus as the system vocabulary, and the relative efficiencies and inherent capabilities of each are compared and related to the general principles of vocabulary control.
INFORMATION USE STUDIES PART 1—PAST RESULTS AND FUTURE NEEDS
Authors: FISHENDEN R.M.
Published: January 2008

One of the few things we know about the present scientific communications network is that it is extraordinarily complicated; the useful network is certainly not confined to the conventional primary and secondary publications. Conferences and oral communications play an important part. Even sheer chance has a significant place. With this complexity, it is perhaps not surprising that we do not know very much about the efficiency with which the network is operating. An efficient system might be defined as one that ensures that all information likely to influence the programme of a research worker or research team is made available to them at the right time and in the most convenient form. Such a system should ensure that research is not delayed or conducted inefficiently because of the failure to obtain potentially available information, and that earlier research is not unnecessarily duplicated. Just to try and define efficiency indicates the difficulty of finding a way in which it can be measured quantitatively.
BARBARA KYLE
Authors: WILSON LESLIE
Published: January 2008

As her many friends and colleagues all over the world already know, Barbara Kyle retired prematurely at the end of June from her twin posts on the staff of Aslib: Research Librarian and Editor of this Journal. Thus ill health has interrupted a career of singular éclat in the realm of librarianship and imposed a burden of rest and recuperation on one whose capacity for living is everywhere a legend. And ‘everywhere’, it must be said, contains in this context no hint of poetic licence, for rarely can the British documentalist abroad have engaged in converse with his colleagues without the name of Kyle being mentioned with respect, admiration, or personal affection—frequently the rare tribute of all three.
THE PUBLISHING PROBLEM—A KITE FOR POLICY MAKERS
Authors: MORPURGO J.E.
Published: January 2008

The communications block is undeniable and its removal imperative. No modern society—and least of all Britain—can prosper unless it hastens the process which translates original thought into executive decision, and amongst the activities which contribute to this end few are as important as an improvement in the methods whereby the results of research achieve publication in journal and book. Yet, as we sit in common‐room and committee‐room debating current difficulties, it would be as well if from time to time we were to accept the fact that not all research is vital to anyone but the researcher and that not all publication is essential. It would be fatuous if we were to organize improvement and enlargement in order to make possible an even larger block.
THE LIBRARY AS AN AGENCY OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATION
Authors: SHERA J.H.
Published: January 2008

The act of communicating is, by definition, the transmission of a message from a communicator to a receptor. The message may be a simple signal or an extensive body of oral or recorded symbolic or pictorial representations. Communication can take place within an individual organism, between two individuals, or among the members of an aggregate, but always there is a mutually intelligible ‘language’ as well as a carrier or medium; and while there may be multiple receptors, in any given instance there can be only one transmitter. Just as in the biological organism there is a neural communication system, so in organized societies there is a social communication network. While the agencies which are a part of this network are easily recognized, and their functions easily identified, the fundamental nature of the communication process within society is only imperfecdy understood. Students of society know lamentably little about the ways in which knowledge and information are communicated within a culture, even a primitive culture. For that matter, psychologists and specialists in the operation of the human nervous system know precious little about the communication of information within the individual. Analogies have been drawn with the electronic circuitry of the computer just as the communication of information within a society has been likened to the spread of epidemics in a population.