bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
SURVEY OF INFORMATION/LIBRARY UNITS In INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
Authors: HANSON C.W.
Published: February 2008

This survey was undertaken in order to obtain quantitative data about special libraries and information sections in industrial and commercial organizations. We wanted to know, for instance, their number and size, how they were organized and staffed, how much they cost; the size and nature of their holdings; what procedures they adopted, what services they provided, and what use was made of those services.
The VALUE OF BUSINESS ARCHIVES TO The ECONOMIC HISTORIAN
Authors: COATS A.W.
Published: February 2008

Within the past few years a small but vigorous and expanding group of scholars has demonstrated a growing interest in business records, and within the next decade or so they and their disciples will present librarians and archivists with some unfamiliar problems. Even if the record keepers resist the demand that they should venture forth to convert the businessmen and gather in the archival harvest, they must necessarily acquaint themselves with the current and prospective uses of these materials. As the main demands will undoubtedly come from business historians, I shall begin by outlining the present status and future prospects of this discipline.
The PRICE OF CO‐OPERATION
Authors: HOLLOWAY A.H.
Published: February 2008

I have often heard at conferences at which a general resolution in favour of co‐operation in the library and information field is put, a reply by Americans to the effect that we all love our mothers and are against sin. It is easy enough to get a conference to agree that co‐operation is a good thing, but not so easy to get all the members to agree to take specific steps: there always seems to be some very good reason why somebody should not do something which it is essential he should do if a project is to succeed. No doubt we have all had similar experiences and wondered why it should be that it is so difficult to operate a scheme which is plainly to the general benefit, and no doubt many of us have at times wondered if the game is worth the candle.
FROM MONASTERY TO MANAGEMENT CENTRE
Authors: LANGRIDGE D.W.
Published: February 2008

It is nearly seven hundred years since a college was founded at Ashridge—the College of Bonhommes (a rare order of monks brought over from the south of France by Edmund Plantagenet).
MOANS BY A USER
Authors: HINSLEY J.F.
Published: February 2008

No two persons engaged in technology have exactly similar requirements. Whatever I may say, therefore, will be coloured by my personal experiences and the searches that I have made for information from time to time. Before I commence the serious business of analysing these experiences, I must make it clear that I do not ‘moan’ by inclination. My dictionary interprets ‘to moan’ as ‘to bewail audibly’. If, therefore, you hear me ‘bewailing’ I ask you to bear in mind that my target is the ‘system’ or the ‘establishment’. In the words of Mr Philip Unwin, ‘one attacks the ball and not the man’. Accordingly, my business is not to attack the publishers but to turn your attention to the fetters (perhaps of convention) that hamper them in the provision of—and ourselves in the search for—technical information.
TECHNIQUES OF INDEXING PERIODICALS
Authors: JONES GEOFFREY C.
Published: February 2008

I want to discuss in this paper on the indexing of technical periodicals several broad aspects of this very comprehensive subject.
WHO SHOULD CONTROL CORRESPONDENCE?
Authors: ASHWORTH W.
Published: February 2008

Tidiness is a cardinal virtue to planners, and the planners of this conference no doubt saw my part as akin to that of a judge—neatly summing up with complete impartiality, yet somehow still contriving to give strong direction to the jury.
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH The ASM METALLURGICAL LITERATURE CLASSIFICATION
Authors: NEGUS J.
Published: February 2008

In 1953, Mr P. E. Colinese contributed to Aslib Proceedings a paper explaining why the British Iron and Steel Research Association had adopted the ASM/SLA Metallurgical Literature Classification to deal with its research reports.
The EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
Authors: PRYCE ROY
Published: February 2008

In signing the treaties establishing the three European Communities—the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Economic Community (Common Market)—the six member countries have set in motion a complex and far‐reaching process which has already had many repercussions far outside the immediate sectors covered by these formal documents. How far the process will lead, especially in its political implications, we do not yet know, but already the ramifications of integration present many new problems to those concerned with information about its economic consequences.
MAKING COMMUNICATION LINKS EFFECTIVE
Authors: ARLIDGE C.J.
Published: February 2008

The interesting and well‐informed contributions made by Dr Pryce and Mr Ross this morning have given, in some measure, the size of the problem facing all of those concerned with sources of information in the years of negotiation with the European Economic Community and afterwards. Bearing in mind the wealth of published material already appearing, this conference may well provide a fitting opportunity to pause and clear our thoughts before initiating any further information publications in this field. The major problem of the vast quantity of Common Market literature appearing in a language other than English is in itself one deserving early attention. At a lecture earlier this year about the European Iron and Steel Community, warning was given of the misinterpretation liable to follow from the simple use of the phrase ‘The Common Market’. It is probable, however, that the looseness of the term in this context can be accepted with comparative safety when compared with the apparent dangers of quoting from the English version of the Treaty of Rome, to which one of this morning's speakers referred.
CLASSIFICATION : AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PROBLEM
Authors: KYLE BARBARA R.F.
Published: February 2008

The Chairman welcomed delegates on behalf of Aslib. She recalled that at the international conference on classification held some years before at Dorking, there had been a permanent air of intellectual euphoria. Nobody had gone to bed. If as much interest were aroused on this occasion, delegates must remember that they could not do in two or three hours what had proved impossible to do in a week, including nights, at Dorking. Dorking had been a particularly fruitful conference. Some of the members, writing on classification afterwards, wrote ‘après Dorking’. She did not know whether they would also say ‘après Belgravia’.
The KEYWORD
Authors: BLACK J.D.
Published: February 2008

It is only within the last six or seven years that the keyword has seriously been considered as a useful media for information processing and retrieval. This is in the main due to the efforts of H. P. Luhn of the IBM Advanced Systems Development Division. In this paper I intend to consider three of his techniques in which the keyword is exploited. But first of all let's bring the keyword into focus.
SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION AND PATENTS
Authors: HAYLOR L.J.H.
Published: February 2008

Not a very exciting title, particularly that word patents, which conjures up documents often difficult to read and even more difficult to understand. There is really no need for a patent specification to be more obscure than any other well drafted technical description; unfortunately jargon has crept in mainly with the intention of being less restrictive and now much of it is due to what I regard as a rather lazy habit.
The FOREIGN LANGUAGE BARRIER
Authors: HOLMSTROM J.E.
Published: February 2008

Ideally all science should belong to everyone, in the sense that everyone needing scientific information for whatever purpose ought to be able to procure quickly the most apposite items of the whole world's literature and be equally able to understand and use them wherever they come from.
CO‐ORDINATE INDEXING
Authors: ERSKINE P.L.
Published: February 2008

The search for an easily installed, practicable and inexpensive information retrieval system continues unabated. This is reflected in the Aslib Library almost daily by requests for advice on the feasibility of installing this or that system, or for information on what systems are available in Great Britain. Study of the following bibliography, which covers only a narrow selection of information retrieval systems, will reveal that much original thought has been producing concrete results in this country. In fact, one of the earliest references is to a paper given at the twenty‐second Aslib Conference in 1947 by W. E. Batten, in which he describes his development of an ‘aspect’ card system—more often referred to today as ‘Peek‐a‐boo’ or ‘feature’ cards. Mr C. W. Cleverdon's Cranfield project is also adding considerable knowledge on the use of various indexing methods, including Uniterm.
The TESTING OF INDEX LANGUAGE DEVICES
Authors: CLEVERDON CYRIL W. , MILLS J.
Published: February 2008

The evaluation of information retrieval systems has recently become an important matter. In the past, however, most reports or proposals on this type of work appear largely to have ignored the efficiency of operation of the central core of an IR system, namely those operations concerned in the compilation and use of the index. The only aspects to receive consideration are the physical form of the index and the design of thesauri or classifications. The former activity has been slanted towards the use of computers and has tended to assume that this type of equipment will, ipso facto, give an improved performance but has made no attempt to justify cost factors which may be one hundred times that of conventional techniques. Work on thesauri and classifications, where it has been practical in nature, appears to consist of compiling lists of terms which go out of favour as quickly as any list of subject headings in the past; the more popular theoretical approach is the setting up of models or the use of increasingly abstruse and complex algebras. From the results and conclusions of the experimental work at Cranfield, it would seem that many of these investigations are comparatively trivial.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF ‘FEATURE CARD’ SYSTEMS. I
Authors: BOYD G.M.
Published: February 2008

After the wealth of theory and principles that we have had this morning, I feel something like awe to think that I have been operating co‐ordinate indexing systems for about eighteen years without knowing anything about the basic theories.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF ‘FEATURE CARD’ SYSTEMS. IV
Authors: SHEDDEN DAVID G.
Published: February 2008

The system, devised initially to satisfy the needs of our Test Department, sought to locate, in the shortest possible time, vital information from a backlog of about twelve thousand reports, together with current additions. The main object was to reduce the number of technical man‐hours involved in searching for the answers to questions posed by management, other departments and firms. It was also required to avoid the duplication of previous tests and provide any previously found information before the commencement of a new test programme. From experience gained with the reports already indexed, it is apparent that these aims are being fulfilled.
INTERVIEWING
Authors: WHITLEY O.J. , WILSON LESLIE
Published: February 2008

What is an interview? Some would say it is something that occurs very rarely in their experience and is usually connected with education or employment. Others, more reflective or perceptive, might say that for most people hardly a day passes without several interviews: interviews at the ticket booking office, at the cleaners maybe, certainly at work, and this winter very probably with the doctor or the plumber, gas fitter, electrician, coal merchant, insurance inspector. Some would say that an interview takes place every morning at the front door when the post is handed over, as a result of which one householder and one uniformed public servant feel either better or worse than they did before the bell rang.
The NEW BUCOP
Authors: PORTER K.I. , Oldman C.B.
Published: February 2008

The National Central Library took over the responsibility for continuing the publication of BUCOP at the beginning of 1962, and the work of compilation was added to the normal routines of the Periodicals Union Catalogue. Coupled with the decision of the council of the World list of scientific periodicals to merge with BUCOP after the publication of its fourth edition, this has had the effect of reducing from three to one the number of reporting centres for libraries disposed to co‐operate in national union schemes embracing serials. In consequence, the NCL's serial catalogue, which is in the process of revision so as to conform as a whole to the new BUCOP principles of entry and arrangement, has to serve two purposes: as a working tool in handling serial applications received in connection with the interlibrary loan system, and as the source from which BUCOP's ‘copy’ is made up. Since the NCL's own collection of serials is small at present, we are to a large extent dependent on the goodwill of the co‐operating libraries not only for information on the extent of their holdings of a particular title but also for details concerning the title itself. Naturally we have access to the large serial collections held by libraries in the vicinity of the NCL, although staff time available constitutes a limiting factor in this respect, and we are exploring ways of increasing the supply of information on new serial titles from the publishers; however, the manner in which libraries notify us of their holdings, and the form of entry they use, must inevitably remain important factors governing the work of compilation, underlining the need for a greater degree of standardization of practice in recording serial publications.
AN INDUSTRIAL INFORMATION SERVICE: The EFFECTS OF GROWTH ON ITS ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION
Authors: ARNOLD D.V.
Published: February 2008

When I was asked to give a paper at this conference the subject as presented to me was ‘the organization of information in a large company’, and I accepted this at its face value. As I thought about it, however, I wondered whether it might not be more interesting to give a reasonable amount of attention to the growth aspect as well as to the eventual stage when an information service can justifiably be called ‘large’; in other words, I might try to indicate—as I saw them—some of the changes in, and consequent problems of, a company information service as it develops from its infancy. I have no intention of defining what I mean by the word ‘large’—someone once said that a small organization is one that is destined to become medium sized, the medium sized is one preparing to grow large and a large one is one that wishes it were small—and would instead refer you to the Aslib survey in which this question of size of information services is given some consideration. I shall have to hope that when you finally hear, in the description I give you, of the amount of time that has to be given to various activities and the number of different activities that have to be performed, you will agree that I am referring to what may reasonably be called a large information service.
CITATION INDEXES
Authors: KEEN E.M.
Published: February 2008

A scientific paper usually contains a bibliography of earlier literature that has been consulted by the author during the course of his work, and the following up of such references has always been a fruitful and well‐used method of tracing earlier information on a subject. Some figures given in a recent Aslib research report confirm this. Of the twelve methods which a group of scientists used to seek information, the following up of references cited in relevant papers was the most popular method, practised by 80 per cent of the sample.
The DDC THESAURUS: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Authors: KLINGBIEL PAUL H.
Published: February 2008

Although I am honoured to have been asked to present this paper I feel somewhat diffident about my topic. Even in the United States documentalists refer to thesauri in disparaging terms and I sometimes get the impression that British documentalists are sure that their American counterparts are suffering from an epidemic of thesaurosis. Interestingly enough, there really is such a disease, and the twentieth edition of Stedman's Medical dictionary defines the condition as follows: ‘Abnormal or excessive storage in the body of phosphatides, fat, iron or other material’.
The NATIONAL REFERRAL CENTER: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN The LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Authors: MCFARLAND M.W.
Published: February 2008

Eighty years ago, in his famous book Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain wrote a few lines which may help us keep perspective on the problems that this conference has been considering. He said:
BUSINESS RECORDS FOR The FUTURE
Authors: BARKER T.C. , Woledge G.
Published: February 2008

There is a certain lack of reality about our approach to the preservation of business records. We are only too eager to discuss the academic, archival problems, but singularly reluctant to face the more pressing truth—that the overwhelming majority of business men have not the foggiest notion of the importance of these records to them, and consequently are quite unaware of the need to preserve them. Why should they show any concern? After all, a business man's interests lie in the present and the future, not in the past. His job is to grapple with new ideas, not with old papers. And, in any case, these old papers take up shelf space which becomes progressively more expensive as site values rise. Why keep all this lumber? To heave it all out is, at first sight, the cheapest solution. Consequently, as office accommodation becomes more valuable, the heaving process continues apace while the faithful discuss the technicalities of preservation on the quite unfounded assumption that most business men are becoming converts to preservation. We have got our priorities wrong. We should be spending much more of our time in trying to persuade the owners of business records that there is gain to them in keeping a carefully selected portion of their old papers for historical purposes. A great deal of evangelism is called for before we can spend the greater part of our time discussing just how these records should be preserved.
EXISTING DOCUMENTATION SERVICES IN CRIMINOLOGY—AND FUTURE NEEDS
Authors: ANDRY R.G.
Published: February 2008

Documentation in Criminology, as in other sciences, has developed steadily and is now expanding rapidly through such media as abstracts indexes, translation services, journals, etc.
The WORK OF The HAMBURG INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
Authors: MICHALSKI WOLFGANG
Published: February 2008

The Hamburg Institute for International Economics is one of five large institutes in the Federal Republic of Germany engaged in economic research, independent of the relevant activities of universities as well as other research organizations in government, trade and industry. Being a scientific institute of the Free and Hanseatic Town of Hamburg it is controlled by the University Department of the Hamburg schoolboard. The Director of the Institute is Professor Dr Heinz‐Dietrich Ortlieb. The staff numbers 120 members, including thirty departmental heads and scientific specialists.
TECHNIQUES AND TRENDS IN EFFECTIVE UTILIZATION OF ENGINEERING INFORMATION
Authors: HOLM B.E.
Published: February 2008

The Institution of Chemical Engineers sponsored this series of lectures on the information programmes of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Engineers Joint Council, and other organizations of interest to those in science and technology. The Institution has been interested in these developments and wants to assess what role it should play in the processing of technical information. From the trends of these organizations and from the developments in equipment and microforms patterns are emerging which will help the information officer in his work.
PUBLIC RELATIONS: HOW TO CREATE MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN AN INDUSTRIAL INFORMATION SERVICE AND ITS CLIENTELE
Authors: HINDSON R.
Published: February 2008

The Institute of Public Relations defines the practice of public relations as ‘the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its public’. Although this definition is clear and concise and its implications are readily understood by people active in the field, it does not really make clear that public relations is primarily concerned with people as individuals. In any kind of social activity or investigation it is very tempting to divide people into groups. Group identification is a useful preliminary to further activity and research. Such identification is certainly useful to an industrial information service since the clientele is divided into groups almost automatically by the reason of their function, e.g. accountants, engineers, executives, managers, metallurgists, research scientists, technologists and so on.
The INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS OF INDUSTRIAL MARKETING RESEARCH
Authors: MACLEAN IAN
Published: February 2008

Marketing Research is probably most widely known to the public through the activities of attractive young ladies who stop you in the streets to ask a whole series of apparently disconnected questions. How many cars do you run? When did you last beat your wife? Can you tell margarine from butter, or Wilson from Heath?
INFORMATION STAFF
Authors: FARRADANE J.E.L.
Published: February 2008

I amhere to speak on behalf of the Institute of Information Scientists. Mr Mason has described an information department as an office with several sub‐professionals and a submerged four‐fifths of clerical staff. I do not recognize the description; perhaps it is a special library—I wouldn't know! Nor will I be drawn by Mr Callender's suggestion that there is one all‐embracing librarianship profession, except to observe if there is it includes people whose tasks differ so greatly that no one training could encompass them all.
The SHELL PHOTOGRAPHIC LIBRARY
Authors: McNEIL R.J.
Published: February 2008

Shell companies are involved in two major industries, oil and chemicals, and are active in no less than one hundred countries. The activities themselves are many and varied—oil exploration, oil production, oil transportation (Shell has the world's largest single tanker fleet), oil refining and manufacture, oil distribution and sales. On the chemicals side there are manufacture and marketing. Throughout both fields there is a major research effort to improve methods and products and to find the new products which progress continually demands. Involved in this worldwide operation are over 200,000 people of differing races, nationalities, religions and political affiliations. Shell makes a very positive effort to keep the public informed about its activities through all the means at its disposal, including the Press, publications, employee mazagines, exhibitions, and lectures; and this, of course, results in a constant demand for photographs—photographs to explain, photographs to decorate, photographs to dramatize, and so on. This activity is carried on to a greater or lesser extent in all countries where Shell companies operate, and all of these companies require a source of photographs.
CONSTRUCTION AND USAGE OF CLASSIFIED SCHEDULES AND GENERIC FEATURES IN CO‐ORDINATE INDEXING
Authors: MCcLELLAND R.M.A. , MAPLESON W.W.
Published: February 2008

The purpose of this article is to examine the hypothesis that ‘classified schedules of features, with specific/generic relationships, are of value in feature‐card indexing.’ The data in support of the hypothesis has been drawn from experience gained in the construction and use of a feature‐card index designed for anaesthetics literature. This index has already been described in detail elsewhere; but to make this article comprehensible it is necessary after outlining the problem of the information explosion in medicine, and in anaesthesia in particular, to give a brief account of the development and structure of this feature‐card index.
The REVELANCE OF RELEVANCE TO The TESTING AND EVALUATION OF DOCUMENT RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS
Authors: REES ALAN M.
Published: February 2008

There is some evidence of a slackening of interest in the testing and evaluation of retrieval systems. The estimated significance of this problem also appears to have decreased markedly. A literature search reveals the existence of less than fifty papers published to date in 1966, most of which do not report experimental activity. This dearth of significant effort may be due to a number of factors: investigators engaged in testing and evaluation have exhausted their repertoire; difficulty in undertaking further effort and at the same time satisfying more stringent experimental design requirements; realization that there never was any theoretical basis to testing and evaluation in the first place and that some basic‐type research is necessary before beginning any new testing activity. It is disappointing to consider how little the work on evaluation has contributed to the improved design and optimization of information retrieval systems. Little agreement exists either with respect to the nature of the phenomena which we wish to subject to quantification (what we are testing) or as to the requisite methodology (bow we are to test).
DUTCH DOCUMENTATION PRACTICE
Authors: VAN DIJK C.
Published: February 2008

Anyone who has ever had to try and describe the educational system of his own country to an audience of foreigners, for example as background to an explanation of librarianship and documentation training, will know how difficult it is to find suitable terminology for this purpose. Every word bears the stamp of the social and cultural traditions of the country concerned.
FAIR (FAST ACCESS INFORMATION RETRIEVAL) PROJECT; AIMS AND METHODS
Authors: PICKFORD A.G.A.
Published: February 2008

I am going to describe in general terms a research project which has been established to explore some of the problems of the use of the literature, particularly in the field of Biomedical Engineering. Work started on 13th September 1965 in the Division of Biomedical Engineering of the National Institute for Medical Research (Hampstead Laboratories). The project is scheduled to last for three years, and like most research, consists of a number of overlapping stages. We have reached the stage now of having acquired sufficient equipment and data to start trying out some of our ideas.
The USE OF LINKS AND ROLES ON A PRE‐CO‐ORDINATION BASIS IN OPTICAL COINCIDENCE SYSTEMS
Authors: JONES K.P.
Published: February 2008

Links and roles have been judged to be of doubtful value, but it is agreed that the devices substantially reduce noise. These devices have been employed on a pre‐co‐ordination basis in an optical coincidence system, without any of the concomitant difficulties of comprehensive usage. The devices are closely related to the generic structure of the system described.
COPYRIGHT AND LIBRARY PHOTOCOPYING: The PRACTICAL PROBLEMS
Authors: WOLEDGE G.
Published: February 2008

I set out comprehensively the provisions of the British law of copyright as they affect libraries in an earlier paper (Journal of Documentation, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 45–50), which presents what I believe to be still an accurate and reasonably complete picture of the situation, but which is too comprehensive to be easily used as a quick guide to the solution of current working problems. The present paper, based on an address to an Aslib Winter Meeting and on the very useful discussion which followed it, concentrates on the kinds of case that trouble the librarian most frequently, and approaches them practically rather than theoretically. For further detail, and for discussion of topics not treated here, the reader may refer to the earlier paper.
The USE OF The COMPUTER IN INFORMATION WORK
Authors: TOWNLEY HELEN
Published: February 2008

The type of search programme we can use depends on the way in which the information is stored within the computer. There are two principle techniques for arranging the files of information about your documents—the item file, in which the record is the document, its identity, its title, etc., and all its descriptors; and the inverted file, in which the record is the descriptor followed by the identities of all the documents to which it applies. Generally speaking, an item file is usually held serially, most commonly on magnetic tape, whereas an inverted file is usually held in a random access device. The reasons for this will become clear later when we discuss the programs.
STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL OF CHEMICAL STRUCTURE DATA
Authors: GALLAGHER P.J.
Published: February 2008

Woodstock Agricultural Research Centre, operated by ‘Shell’ Research Ltd, is one of a number of Shell Company laboratories working in the agricultural chemicals field. One of the main functions of Woodstock is the synthesis of new chemical compounds for testing as potential new pesticides and over twenty thousand compounds have already been screened there since the laboratory was set up. A similar number of compounds have been examined at other Shell laboratories so that both chemical and biological data on nearly fifty thousand compounds are now available and are being augmented at a rate of around four thousand each year.
The TWO CULTURES IN INFORMATION WORK The SECOND ASLIB ANNUAL LECTURE
Authors: FRANCIS FRANK
Published: February 2008

‘OH!’ said Miss Dartle, ‘Now I am glad to know that, I ask for information and I am glad to know it.’ You will recall that when David Copperfield went to bed a little later on that night he was haunted by Rosa Dartle and her questions. He found a startling likeness of her, looking eagerly at him from the chimney‐piece in his bedroom, and he wondered peevishly why they couldn't have put her anywhere else instead of quartering her on him. Though he undressed quickly, put out the light and got into bed, he couldn't forget that she was still there, looking. ‘Is it really, though?’ ‘I want to know’—and when he awoke in the night he found he was uneasily asking all sorts of people in his dreams whether it really was or not, without knowing what he meant.
COMMENTS ON The TERMINOLOGY OF The ANALYSIS OF LIBRARY SYSTEMS AND The FUNCTION OF FORMS THEREIN
Authors: THOMAS P.A. , EAST H.
Published: February 2008

A great deal of effort on the part of the members of Aslib Research Department during the past two years has gone into systems studies of various types of libraries. Because the work has involved a variety of techniques, for example O & M, market survey and analysis prior to mechanization, there have arisen, from time to time, difficulties in communication within the department with regard to the description of library/information systems. In particular, the meaning and use of words in ‘orthodox’ management terminology (if there is such a thing) are not always particularly relevant in the analysis of library systems, although the techniques themselves may be very useful. Lacking any standardized terminology, a group of co‐workers can at least attempt to isolate concepts and agree, amongst themselves, what words they are going to use to denote them.
FURTHER COMMENTS ON The TERMINOLOGY OF The ANALYSIS OF LIBRARY SYSTEMS
Authors: GILCHRIST ALAN
Published: February 2008

In a recent issue of this journal Thomas and East outlined the difficulties in communication which faced the Aslib Research Department arising from increased attention to the use of management techniques in library/information systems. Their project, involving a study of the use of bibliographic records in libraries, led to a need to define certain terms relating to systems and their analysis, and this paper attempts to continue the same line of thought. It should be reiterated here that the two papers do not attempt to provide the standard terminology but a standard terminology for a group of co‐workers. The need to extend the framework of definitions has arisen from another project of the Aslib Research Department titled ‘Economics of Library Processes’. The aim of this project is to systematically study a wide range of processes, and to evaluate the economics of alternative techniques. This will involve the use of a number of management techniques whose applicability will be concurrently assessed.
PROGRESS WITH DATA CENTRES
Authors: FAIRBAIRN R.E.
Published: February 2008

Critical reference data may be defined as the critically evaluated measurements of basic properties of definable systems. Such data are selected after rejection of inaccurate or ill‐defined measurements or measurements which do not relate to definable properties and materials. The earlier collection and compilation of reference data was confined to areas where there were groups of scientists willing to undertake the compilation and where there was a clear interest in their use. Following the recognition that the task of critical data compilation, long left to individuals or groups, needed proper examination, co‐ordination and financing, some centres, a notable example being the National Bureau of Standards, United States, have undertaken a broad and systematic attack on the problem to identify and fill the gaps and to ensure a uniformly good quality of output. In June 1963 a National Standard Reference Data System was established within the administration of the National Bureau of Standards, the actual responsibility within the NBS being assigned to the Office of Standard Reference Data. The extent of the activities of the NSRDS at the present time is surveyed in NBS Technical Note 448 which lists in detail the data activities falling within the national data system.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON MARKET RESEARCH USED BY INDUSTRIAL LIAISON CENTRES TO ASSIST SMALL FIRMS
Authors: LEES R.
Published: February 2008

A discussion of the various sources on market research used by Industrial Liaison Officers cannot be considered in isolation from the philosophy and operation of the industrial liaison scheme. This paper can therefore be considered to be in two parts, firstly that concerning the scheme itself and secondly the use of the various sources of information by the ILOs.
A STUDY IN The SOURCE LITERATURE OF PLASMA PHYSICS
Authors: EAST H. , WEYMAN A.
Published: February 2008

The authors of this paper were formerly involved in designing computer‐assisted services for physicists, particularly with respect to the improvements to facilities offered by Physics Abstracts. This study arose from discussions concerned with defining what the literature of physics is. This is an extremely difficult task, but one which has to be faced by those providing a service which aims to give an acceptable coverage of the relevant literature.
STEPS IN The DEVELOPMENT OF BS 1000
Authors: WRIGHT J.E.
Published: February 2008

My story starts in 1927 when, at a meeting with Dr S. C. Bradford, Keeper of the Science Museum Library, and others, Professor A. F. C. Pollard propounded his ideas for this country participating in a network of national societies, which would be affiliated to a central controlling body, in order to secure international unity in bibliographical procedure and classification—ideas Pollard had nurtured for nearly twenty years as a result of joining the Institut International de Bibliographic in 1908. Before 1927 ended the British Society for International Bibliography (BSIB) was formed and named as the British Section of the Institut International de Bibliographic, and also the International Bibliographic Centre for Pure and Applied Science. Thus, at the very beginning of its existence, BSIB was committed to the Universal Decimal Classification, developed by the IIB from the Decimal Classification of Melvil Dewey and sometimes called the Brussels Expansion.
SUBJECT RELATIONS IN SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY LITERATURE
Authors: EARLE PENELOPE , VICKERY BRIAN
Published: February 2008

The analysis of citations has often been employed to indicate the use of the literature of science and technology. Citation is only an indicator of use, not an accurate measure, and like all such indicators has defects. Differences between indicators have been discussed elsewhere.
DISCOVERING The USER AND HIS INFORMATION NEEDS
Authors: WOOD D.N.
Published: February 2008

As librarians and information officers become increasingly aware that their main function should be to provide an efficient service for their users, more attention is being paid to discovering what type of service is required. Any service must be based on the information needs of the users, and as a means of determining these the organized use study has achieved a position of prominence in recent years.
READER INSTRUCTION IN MODERN UNIVERSITIES
Authors: GRAHAM MACKENZIE A.
Published: February 2008

Nearly fourteen years ago my colleague at the University of Glasgow, R. O. MacKenna, wrote in the Journal of Documentation what is virtually the paper I am going to read today (although perhaps I am in a position to translate into practice things which he could only, at that time, discuss in a theoretical way). He called reader instruction ‘a university library problem’; it is still a problem, but there are signs that it is one which is on the way to being solved, or at least one which we now know how to solve if we only had the financial resources to implement the solution.
PURPOSE IN CO‐OPERATION
Authors: ANTHONY L.J.
Published: February 2008

Man, although generally described as a social animal, is not particularly well equipped for co‐operating with his fellows. Co‐operation implies willingness to surrender some freedom of action in order to promote the common good of the group, and although we exhibit this kind of behaviour throughout our lives, we do so only in response to pressures which are such that any other form of conduct would be intolerable.
PLANS FOR A NEW SYSTEM OF BUSINESS STATISTICS
Authors: FESSEY M.C.
Published: February 2008

It is flattering that a statistician should be asked to address a gathering of librarians. In Five Orange Pips Sherlock Holmes remarks that a man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture he is likely to use and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library where he can get it if he wants it. I have no view about Conan Doyle's definition of a library as a lumber room, but certainly I find the little brain attics of librarians well stocked with one of the two branches of epistemology, as Dr Johnson defined them: ‘Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information about it’. I pay tribute to the ability of librarians to find information about statistics, despite what must occasionally seem to them the perverse ingenuity with which statisticians make the task difficult. It is easy enough to find United Kingdom statistics. There are an infinity of them—in the Digests of Statistics, of Financial Statistics, of Regional Statistics, and so on. The trouble is that those who inquire of you usually want a particular statistic—although the phrase ‘any figures will do’ is one which is not unfamiliar to me. To find in the forest of United Kingdom figures the particular sapling which a researcher is seeking is sometimes far from easy. My experience is that the librarians know their way about the lumber at least as well as we statisticians do.
TASKS AND The ANALYSIS OF LIBRARY SYSTEMS
Authors: THOMAS P.A.
Published: February 2008

Some while ago, in an attempt to improve communication between members in the Research Department, we published some comments in Aslib Proceedings on the terminology of the analysis of library systems. We were not in any way advocating a standard use of certain expressions, only trying to reach some mutual agreement on what we meant by the words we were actually using in our studies of various libraries, and offering the result in the hope that it might prove interesting or useful to others. One of the projects mentioned then, concerned with the use of bibliographic records in libraries, has progressed to a stage where some extension of our original comments can be made.
INTERNATIONAL CO‐OPERATION AMONG INFORMATION SPECIALISTS: The WORK OF FID
Authors: SVIRIDOV F.A.
Published: February 2008

Rapid progress of science and technology and its growing influence on all aspects of life of the modern society are characteristic features of our time. Well‐functioning and effective information services are a pre‐requisite for any further development (from preparing a small experiment in a research laboratory to decision‐making by a governmental agency).
INNOVATION RESULTING FROM RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN The INFORMATION FIELD
Authors: FAIRTHORNE R.A.
Published: February 2008

Research can mean many things, even after we rule out its use as a label to raise the rank of institutional pecking order or the thinking of beautiful, but unverifiable, thoughts. Here I will regard the research man as a thoughtful artisan. That is, as a craftsman who steps back from his immediate task to look at it in relation to something else, and then turns back to his task to change it or, even better, to make it unnecessary.
PRIMARY MATERIALS IN URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING
Authors: WHITE BRENDA
Published: February 2008

About two years ago Professor Peter Hall gave a series of lectures at an Oxford college on the subject of regional planning, and devoted an entire lecture to a definition of planning. I have no wish to emulate such a performance, but perhaps I can spend some preliminary minutes in establishing what it is I am going to talk about. The more one reads and listens the more apparent it becomes that the word ‘planning’ means all things to all men—from planning next year's summer holiday to planning the American space programme. In all cases, though, there are common features. There is a goal to be achieved. The achievement of that goal is generally subject to a certain number of constraints, or limiting factors, such as the amount of time available or a limit on the financial budget. In most cases, also, there are several ways of achieving the goal and these have to be evaluated in terms of respective advantages and disadvantages, taking into account the known constraints, and one of them selected as the optimum solution. If this is then adopted as the plan, it has to be put into action, and of course the more complex the plan the longer the period of its implementation and, during that period, fresh constraints may arise, conditions may change and continuous modifications have to be made to the original statement of intent to adapt it to changing circumstances.
POLICY ISSUES AND The DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Authors: JUDGE P.J.
Published: February 2008

Forgive my starting with so inelegant a quotation, used earlier this year at a meeting of computer professionals by a speaker who was criticizing the ‘incestuous’ nature of the discussions in their closed circle: I am sure that it does not apply to the present meeting. But it does apply to meetings of many kinds of technical specialists where no opportunities are given for people outside the family circle to listen, to criticize, and to present their own viewpoints. The quotation also raises important policy issues, to which I shall return later.
LIBRARY SCIENCE LITERATURE: SOME PROBLEMS OF INFORMATION ABOUT INFORMATION
Authors: TAYLOR L.J.
Published: February 2008

When I received your Honorary Secretary's invitation to speak at this conference I was naturally very flattered—because nobody had ever asked me to speak at a library conference before—and the choice of subject suited me, since it has been my concern over the last seven years of my professional career and since I was already about to prepare a contribution to another work on much the same topic. So I accepted the invitation with eagerness. But that was several months ago, and in the interim I have been getting progressively more uneasy. The other assignment I mentioned—a survey of the last five years' production in library science literature for our new reference work BLIS—had been completed, not without a struggle, and far from thinking afterwards that I could incorporate the same material into this talk, I was led further into doubt about what I should say, doubt about why I was being asked here at all, and what my qualifications were for saying anything at all to anyone. I thought back over the conferences I had attended as an all‐too‐silent observer these last seven years and asked myself what common characteristic the speakers had that I could now lay a claim to. They seemed, many of them, to be full‐time research workers, or recipients of grants, people with a lot of ideas about the future of the profession, library school lecturers, educationists with a discerning or a patronizing interest in libraries, political figures dragooned into giving their set speeches to, for a change, library audiences, and quite simply, people talking about their day‐to‐day work. Only the last category was open to me, and you will be pleased to hear that I do not intend to talk about my work at the Library Association, except incidentally.
SDI: SOME ECONOMIC AND ORGANIZATIONAL ASPECTS
Authors: DAMMERS H.F.
Published: February 2008

In the context of the present symposium it would seem appropriate that I should deal specifically with the economic aspects of Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) operation and use. In my opinion the technical feasibility and merits of SDI have been adequately demonstrated; the main barriers hindering general use, however, tend to be of an economic nature.
BASIC STRUCTURES FOR THESAURAL SYSTEMS
Authors: JONES KEVIN P.
Published: February 2008

The history of post‐co‐ordinate indexing is one of trial and error in the face of poor results … Most thesauri seem very arbitrary in word selection and the extent of classification is equally arbitrary. FARRADANE The lack of semantic understanding, not even of a highly sophisticated level, by many other‐wise thoughtful workers in information retrieval is distressing… It may be hoped that the somewhat mystical aura which has been spread around the use of thesauri in literature searching, whether on purpose or by misunderstandings, will be dispersed in order to make room for a sober and down‐to‐earth discussion of the issue. BAR‐HILLEL
Information flow in the construction industry: a study and the development of its recommendations
Authors: Bishop Donald
Published: February 2008

Two factors combined in the United Kingdom to make improved communications a more important subject than had been the case previously. On the one hand the building industry is fragmented, in that design and construction are usually undertaken separately, the former by firms of professional architects, quantity surveyors and engineers usually working independently, the latter by contractors supported by a large number of specialist subcontractors. Conventionally, the design professions produce a complete and fully detailed design supported by specifications and bills of quantities, although usually some details are available only after work on site has commenced. On the basis of these documents contractors tender competitively, most contractors undertaking only a proportion of the total work, the remainder being undertaken by specialist subcontractors, some of whom are appointed directly by the client and others who work directly to the main contractors. Hence, at the tender stage in particular, there is need for clear and complete information. Additionally during design and construction there is a continuing requirement for information to be passed quickly and reliably between organizations. The basic system (Figure 1) only hints at the number of organizations involved in design and construction and the complex flow of information. Hence the importance, and growing importance, of a reliable, universal and efficient flow of information.