1987/88 at Henry Morley

Molly Chuah*

Abstrak: Penulis laporan ini menghuraikan pengalaman penyelidikan dan penemuannya se-masa mengikuti kursus Sarjana Pengajian Perpustakaan dan Maklumat di School of Library,Archive and Information Studies (Henry Morley), University College London pada sesi 1987/88. Perhatian utama pengajian ditumpukan pada pengawasan bibliografi penerbitan i't1svni •di Britain dan Malaysia. Penggunaan piawaian bibliografi antarabangsa pada Malaysianamerupakan bidang kecil pengajian.

Abstract: This report describes the writer's research experience and findings while under-taking the MA course in Library and Information Studies at the School of Library, Archive andInformation Studies (Henry Morley), University College London during the 1987/88 session.The bibliographic control of official publications in Britain and Malaysia was the substantivearea of her study. The application of international bibliographic standards to Malaysiana wasthe subsidiary area.

The MA in Library and Information Studiescourse at University College London is essen-tially a research oriented programme. It providesone with an opportunity to make an indepth studyinto two areas within the field of library and infor-mation studies. The choices made in this in-stance were the bibliographic needs and provi-sions in selected subject areas; and the organisa-tion and retrieval of knowledge.

Within one of these two areas a specific topicwas identified for study for a dissertation. In viewof the importance of Malaysian government pub-lications and the problems of availability and accessto these publications, it was decided that a studyof the bibliographic control of British official pub-lications be undertaken so as to draw some les-sons for application to the Malaysian context.

Her Majesty's Stationery Office or HMSO, beinga major government printer and publisher in GreatBritain, was the first organisation to be lookedinto. In an above average year, the HMSO couldbe producing nearly 9000 new titles.' The Biblio-graphic Section of HMSO's Publications Centreplays an important role in the bibliographic con-trol of British government publications as it isresponsible for the production of a range of cata-logues and lists of HMSO and international or-ganizations' publications. Titles are input intocomputers and from this database the Daily List,

monthly and annual printed catalogues are pro-duced. These catalogues are invaluable tools fortracing both in and out of print titles.

The Bibliographic Section also maintains adatabase known as Publication Research whichgives details of all titles published since 1976, allHMSO titles published before 1976 which are stillin print and all agency titles received by HMSOsince 1976. This database is accessed by HMSO'sorder handling department, enquiries, sales of-fices and HMSO's bookshops to ascertain thestock status of a title. Information regarding re-cent HMSO titles is held on Prestel, providingcustomers with details on the very date of publi-cation. Specific titles are advertised on Presteland customers may transmit their orders throughit.

The Bibliographic Section also provides atelephone enquiry service, responding to queriesas varied as books hop opening times or subsidi-ary legislation made under certain Acts. It alsochecks and deals with written enquiries on ordersand titles.

However, there is an increasing number ofofficial publications not undertaken by HMSO butindependently by government agencies them-selves.2 This group of non-HMSO publicationswas not covered by any major bibliographic aids

* Pustakawan Tiingkatan Siasa, Perpustakaan Institut Penqajian Tinggi, Universiti Malaya.

Kekal Abadi 8(1) Mac 198918

until 1"980 when Chadwyck-Healey first issuedtheir Catalogue of British Official Publications NotPublished by HMSO. It was thus necessary toinvestigate how this catalogue is compiled. Adiscussion with its editor, David Worthington,revealed that the compilers relied heavily on aresearcher in their employment at the BodleianLibrary, a copyright deposit library. This researcherchecks her card index of publications receivedagainst Chadwyck-Healey catalogues and thenprepares a list of items received by Bodleian butnot by Chadwyck-Healey. Publication lists, peri-odicals of official organisations and newspapersare also scanned for publication announcements.

Tracking down publications for inclusion inthis catalogue is not without problems. Personalcontacts established in official organisations breakdown with transfer of officers. The decentralisednature of departmental publishing and distribu-tion operations mean that several sources ofsupply have to be checked. Moreover, govern-ment publications usually have very small print-runs and consequently they go out of print shortlyafter release. Many departments do not publicisetheir publications and seldom maintain adequatedistribution channels. The rather narrow interpre-tation of "publication" adopted by some officialsresults in the restriction of circulation of materialsto a specialised group of readers.

Despite these problems the compilers havesucceeded in adding 21 new contributors in 1987,relying on the following four main sources to trackdown governmental agencies: Stephen Richard'sDirectory of British Official Publications, HMSO'sPublic Bodies, and Civil Service Yearbook; andthe Central Office of Information's Information,Press and Public Relations Officers.

This catalogue is now available on DIALOG asBritish Official Publications (Non-HMSO). Theinclusive dates of the DIALOG file is 1980 to thepresent and it is updated bimonthly. Plans tohave a combined HMSO and non HMSO cata-logue on CD-ROM have materialised with the re-lease of the first disk in March 1989, of the Cata-!ogue of United Kingdom Official publications, a[oint Chadwyck-Healey and HMSO effort. Thiscatalogue records all UK official publications andthose of twelve major international organizationsfrom 1980 to the present. Consisting of more than160,000 records, the database is updated quar-terly with the 1989 subscription scheduled forMarch, July, October and January.'

Besides providing a comprehensive listing ofall British Official publications not published byHMSO, Chadwyck-Healy also provides a docu-ment delivery service on microfiche.

Having investigated how bibliographic con-trol of British official publications is undertaken bypublishers, attention was then turned to the roleplayed by libraries which have large collections ofofficial publications. A two week attachment atthe House of Commons Library provided an ex-cellent opportunity to gain some insight into theindexing system maintained for the vast quantityof British parliamentary papers issued.

For several years the Commons Library hadmaintained, on visible strip indexes, indexes toParliamentary proceedings, Parliamentary papers,European documents, UK official publications,press cuttings and notes, research reports. etc.However, this manual system could not cope withthe increase in the volume of these materials andthe wider ranging and more specialized enquiriesreceived by the library. Therefore, it was neces-sary to transfer this manual system to a com-puter -based system over a five year period begin-ning in 1980, thus inaugurating the ParliamentaryOn Line Information System (POLIS). POLIS is asubject indexed database maintained by theLibrary's Indexing Unit, with inputs from variousother sections such as the International AffairsSection which indexes European and interna-tional publications. Hardware is operated by theInspectorate UCC. The software used is the BASIStext management package. The files available onPOLIS are as follows: PARL83 consistmo of allParliamentary items from 9 May 1979 to May1983; PARL87 - all Parliamentary items from 22June 1983 to May 1987; POLIS - all non-Parlia-mentary items plus all Parliamentary items fromJune 1987 onwards; and HOLLIS-House of LordsLibrary pamphlets and official publications from1979 to April 1987. The current growth rate is ap-proximately 80,000 items per annum." From thisdatabase one obtains immediate references tothe source of full text, date of publication, namesof departments, ministers, Members of Parlia-ment, chairpersons and titles of committeeslegiSlation; and subject headings assigned fro~the POLIS thesaurus.

Apart from being briefed on how the variousitems are indexed and input into POLIS, there wasalso a one day session with tl'"leHansard indexer

19

who explained how printouts from POLIS wereedited to produce the fortnightly and sessionalindexes to the Hansard. Practical experience atretrieval from POLIS was obtained during the firstweek of attachment at the Parliamentary Section(Oriel Room) which is an extremely busy refer-ence and readers' services secuon."

A visit was also made to the University ofSouthampton Library to study the organization ofthe Ford Collection of Parliamentary Papers underthe charge of Diana Marshallsay. Indexes of bills,annual reports, press notices, ministerial state-ments, consultation documents are maintainedon cards. An invaluable aid to the collection andfor the compilation of the Ford Breviates is thesubject index to policy papers. The organisationof the collections of British official publications atthe British Library Official Publications & SocialSciences Service Reading Room (OP & SS)6 andthe University of London Library at Senate House,was also explored.

The study of the Malaysian situation entailedfirstly the establishment of the historical back-ground to government printing and publishing inMalaysia. Forthis purpose, primary sources suchas Government gazettes, and the annual colonialreports at the Public Records Office, Kew werereferred to. As for current publishing, distributionand acquisition practices, data had to be col-lected through a survey. Questionnaires werecirculated to eighteen government agencies andthese were followed up with interviews conductedfrom 12 December 1987 to 12 January 1988.

The findings of the study were presented in adissertation entitled "Bibliographic Control ofOfficial Publications in Malaysia"'? There is nodoubt that bibliographic control of official publi-cations in Great Britain is much more extensiveand sophisticated than in Malaysia. HMSO publi-cations and Parliamentary papers are at leastadequately covered unlike in Malaysia where thereis an absence of bibliographic expertise at theGovernment Printer to undertake the compilationof an adequate and frequently issued catalogue,let alone detailed indexes. Neither is there anycommercial enterprise like Chadwyck-Healey inter-ested in undertaking such bibliographic func-

20

tions. Given the lack of awareness of the impor-tance of bibliographic control and expertise at themajor sources of publication, bibliographic con-trol after publication is a more feasible solution.Libraries, particularly the National Library andacademic libraries which possess a pool of biblio-graphic expertise, are more likely to undertakethe tasks of tracking down publications and bib-liographically describing them. However, Malay-sian academic libraries, no longer given legaldeposit status, may find their acqetsmon.enortshampered.

Though a greater portion of time was spenton this major area of study, considerable atten-tion was given to auditing diploma classes incataloguing and classification in relation to theminor area of study chosen, i.e. the organizationand retrieval of knowledge. The weekly seminarson area classification during which the applica-tion of bibliographic standards to collections inAsian and African countries and Oriental andAfrican subject collections was discussed, provedvery enlightening for the study of the cataloguingand classification of Malaysiana. This study waseventually presented as a minor report in whichmodifications to international bibliographic stan-dards such as the Anglo-American CataloguingRules 2nd ed. (AARC2), were also suggested forMalaysiana

The automation aspect of information organi-zation and retrieval was dealt with during a courseof lectures, PASCAL programming classes, anddemonstrations of wordprocessing packages,database management software, viewtext sys-tems, online searching of bibliographic databasesand OPACS (online public access catalogues),use of CD-ROM and electronic mail. What provedvery interesting were the various conferencesand exhibitions such as the Eleventh InternationalOnline Information Meeting, 8-10 December 1987during which state-of-art systems were demon-strated and the Small Computers in LibrariesInternational Conference and Exhibition, 23-25February 1988, which dealt with the use of micro-computers in libraries

All in all, the year's sojourn in London was astimulating one, academically and profession-

ally. The· research process was a test of inde-pendence and tenacity in spirit, especially duringthe gloomy autumn and winter months. Without 'the encouragement of lecturers, tarnily members

Notes

1. Brian Minett, "Parliamentary and statutorypublishing", Law Librarian, 16 (1985), p.8.

2. In 1978 Diana Marshallsay, Librarian in-charged the Ford Collection d Parliamentary Papers,University d Southampton Library, estimatedthat up to 30,000 items a year were pub-lished independently. by government bod-ies compared to about 10,000 by HMSO.HMSO's role in official publishing has de-clined in recent years. For example in 1986the HMSO's annual catalogue listed 4,600publications, a figure considerably lower thanthe 1975 figure of 7,200.

3. Ubrary Association Record, 91:3 (March 1989),p.170.

4. POLIS technical details August 1987. Com-puter and Technical Services Section of theHouse of Commons Library.

and dear colleagues at home and the camarade-rie of fellow students, the trials and tribulations ofstudent life would have been insurmountable. Tothese friends I express my sincere thanks.

5. For structure and services of the House ofCommons Library see David Menhennet,"Inside the Commons Library", Library As-sociation Record, 72: 10 (Oct 1970), p.329;M. Rush and M. Shaw, editors, The House ofCommons: Services and Facilities. London:Allen & Unwin, 1974, pp.134-160; PhilipLaundy, Parliamentary Librarianship in theEnglish-Speaking World. London: LibraryAssociation, 1980, p.29-41; Dermot Engle-field, Parliament and Information: the West-minster Scene. London: Library Associa-tion, 1981.

6. See R.W. Howes, "Official publications in theBritish Library," International Library Review,19(1987), p.225-241.

7. A copy is deposited in the University of MalayaLibrary.

21