ON ABSTRACT AND ABSTRACTING

The qualities that an abstract should possessand benefits that accrue from an abstract have beenOJI*Uned. Kinds of abstracts ( i. e. informative andindicative); types of abstracts ti.e. author abstracts.,subject-authority abstracts. eta.L; standards &general rules for abstracting. and the steps involvedin abstracting have been discussed.

THE BOOl( REV<'LUTION

The size, growth rate, and, above all, thecomplexity of records of human communication,all we lind them-today, have been causing alarmingconcern to those engaged in enlarging the bonds ofhuman knowledge and'with it the progress of thesociety in which we live in. This is, however, nota new phenomenon: In 1851 Joseph Henry (llSecretary of the Smithsonian Institute, spe aking 01the 'literature explosion', had warned that " ..• un-,Ie s e thh masll be a sce rt a ine d, literature andscience will be overwhelmed by their own unwielliybulk. The pile will begin to totter under its ownweight, and all the additions we may keap upon itwill tend to add to the extension of the base with-out increasing the elevation and dignity of theedilice~' Suggesting remedial me as ur e a, however,he said, Bne 01 the most important means oflacilitating the use of libraries ... is well digestedindexes of subjects, not merely referring to voIum-,es and books, but to memoires, papers and parts01 IIcientific transactions and systematic works".

This he had said, when, according to hisown estimate, about 20,000 volumes and pamph-lets, were published annually in the world. Thisnumber, however, far exceeds today, just in onecountry alone. Besides, book publication is alsoincreaeing every year at a faster rate. Accordingto Verner Clapp (2), this increase, in 1949, was6 timee laster to that of the population of.the UnitedStates itself. The current output of periodicalarticles, is even more alarming. The number ofuselul scientific and technical article s, appearingin the late 1930'II,was estimated to be around 750,000 a year. In yet another el!~imate, presented inthe UNESCO Conlerence on Science Abstracting(1949" thh figure was placed around 1,850,000.

14

Dr. ANIS KHURSHID

Departm~nt of Library Sc ie aee :Univeraity of Karachi. Pakistan

Later, in 19~8 it was raised to 2,500,000. Th.P.Loosjell (3, calls thie growth onslaught as an'operation de lug e", But the 'deluge' does not seemto subside. In certain scientific dhciplides, lI~has Chemistry, this has resulted into an 'Informat-ion explosion' producing as many as one usabledocument every minute.

The slanting to Science and Technology inthe preceding discussion should not be construedhere to suggest that the areas in Social Science andHumanities, a~e devoid of such an alarming situat-ion. On the contrary in Asia itself, which includesJapan and India respectively as the 5th (31,074 booband the 8th (15,175 books) largest book producingcountries 01 the world in 1972 the rate of increasein publications, in the areas 01 Social Science aDdHumanities is far more than in that of Science andTechnolog y, as would be evident from the bookstatistics. Out of 68, 277 books published in Asia(1972), only 13,132 (i. e. 191., titles account forApplied and Pur e Science s , Again, the frequencyof title dispersal in the literature of Social Sciencesand Humanities, all over. the world, is greater t,hanthat in Science and Technology. A good example 01this disper sal, is Vannaver Bush's widely-quotedarticle "As We May Think", in a popular non-scientific journal Atlantic MontJ:!!y (vol. 176 July1945', pp 101-08. This article, in effect, lays thefoundation of the much-talked "Mechanized Informat-ion Retrieval" of our time although the journal inwhich this article was published by no stretch ofimagination can be taken to be a Science journal.

The problem of easy access to the printedword becomes far more acute in a developing countrywhich lacks mechanism to control them. Here, thetwin challenges of the growth of literature and theincreasing desire of the people to learn newermethods of learning and inquiry ar e met with themelancholy of inaccessibility to the printed word.The lite rature has grown much in size and substanceand, therefore, demands timely and organized blbllo-graphic control; more so in a developing countrywhere duplication of resource II and researche. may Wat the C08t of country's natlonal growth.

Ann Ltbset 'nee

Abstract. in thh context, play an importantrole in serving the 'mind of men' as D. J. Foskett,puts. it; it helps provide current awar ene es of the<state -of-art on one's r e se ar ch problem and leadsto ac ce as to and consequently to closer insightinto the literature of the day. amassing in quantum.Fred A.Tate and James' L. Wood (4) regardabstracting and index~ng as "merelyextension8 ofthe overall library function". For, abstracts, likelibrary catalogues, according to them, eventuallylead users "back to the originals that libraries. areexpected to furnish". They also 'call library cata lo-gues as 'skeleton abstracts' and libraries as'bibliographic retailers'. -But the accessibility toliterature as contemplated above is always open tothe following p r obl erne r-,

1. The physical impossibility of readingand associating in one's memory allthe literature that has reasonableprobability of being useful to one'sproblem.

2. The economic impossibility of acquir-ing or exploiting a majur part of theliterature that may be useful for oneindividual or organization.

3. The failure of the traditional librarytools to cope effectively with all thedetailed requirements of their readers.

ABSTRACTS AND THE SPATE OF LITERATURE

Broadly speaking an abstract provides 'abrief summary that gives the essential points of abook, pamphlet or art icle '. A good abstract,however, should possess the following qual it ie sfS},

1. It should be informational, clear,accurate, precise, reasonably brief(E.J. Crane)

2. It should make available completeinfor mation; inclus ion or specificreference to every measurement, obser-vation, method, appratus, suggestionand theory, which is presented as newand of value in itself (E.J. Crane)

3. It should present new data, which maynot have been reported previously in theliterature (E. J. Crane}

4. It should be as brief as possible but notat the cost of its clarity (E. J. Crane}

S. It should not include any criticis m(G. M. Dyson)

6. It should also include negative results(G. M. Dyson)

Vol. 26 Nos 1--4 (Mar - Dec) 1979

7. It should be\vritten in the third person(Royal Society Conference, 1948'

8. It should as sume that the reader of theabstract has some knowledge of the-aubj ect but has not read the paper (RoyalSociety Conference, ) 948)

9. It should usually begin by stating thesubject unless it is obvious from the title(Royal Society Conference, 1948)

) O. It should include author's own view on thepossibility of applying results describedin it (A. L. Mikhaioov)

I) . There should be minimum possible timelag between the publication ·of the originaldocument and the abstract (C. L. Bernier)

12. It should include an index (C. L.·Bernierl

13. The price of abstracting journal is also aquality factor; high price limits use ofabstracts (C. L. Bernier)

J4. A good printing, compactness andimproved legibility of the text andusable format adds to the usabilityof an abstract (C. L. Bernier)

It would be appropriate to pose here thequestion that Barbara Kyle .(6) directs to theabstractors in the field of Social Sciences. Theanswer s tp the se que stion s according to he r , makea good ab st r act ,

(a) What was/were the point/s which theauthor intend s to make in the articleabstracted?

i] Survey of knowledge of the subject?·ii] Some new thesis or angle on the

subject? 'iii] Some particular angle on the

subject? If so, what?

(b) What is the author's standing in thefie Id?

(e) What evidence is offered?

USERS OF ABSTRACTS

According to Bernier (7) the benefitsaccruing from the abstracts can be summed upas under:-

I. Abstracts generally bring togetherbriefs of many language papers andarticles in oneiLang uage . Hence.theuser needs to know only one or atleast two languages to scan the liter-ature of his subject through abstracts.

IS

ANIS mJRSHlD

Z. Abstracts facilitate lIelectioQ"of docu-m ents for actual 'use and r,eading froma huge bulk of more than ZOO, 000pape r a appearing every year.

3. Information contained in abstractssubstitutes for the original literaturein many cases.

4. Abstracts are more convenient toarrange and use in retrospectivesearch in relation to relevant mater-ials on-the subject than it may bepossible with the original literature.Classified abstracts serve a usefulguide to the literature as well.

5. Abstracts belp save lot of time inliterature searching;

6. R etro spe ct ive Bear che s are also madeeasier through cumulative indexes ofthe abstracts.

7. Abstracts i'rovide more accurateinformation about literature than othersearching, tools, such as catalogue s,bibliographies, indexes and tradeannouncements.

8. It is easier to copy, cut, and pasteabstracts.

9. Abstracts are helpful for writingreview s,preparilll talks and compilingbibliographies.

KINDS OF ABSTRACTS

In general abstracts are of two kinds:

1. Informative Abstracts2. Indicative or Descriptive Abstracts

The difference in the two lie s in theirspecificity; the In!2!.!!'.!ili.Vb~!, for example,will. describe a study on "use of public librariesin Karachi" as under:

'''KMC libraries, studied in 1975, showlack of access to 28,000 volumes contain-ed in them. Further, only 41- use ismade of the remaining collection (62, 000volumes) in the libraries surveyed".

The Indicative or Descriptive Abstra£!..on the other hand, will suffice to say:

''The non cu se and inaccessibility, of theKMC libraries, in 1975, was determinedand repo rte dOl.

The Informative Abstracts, however, aremore widely -used"and are in great demand compar-

16

ed to the Indicative Abstracts. Allen Kent (8)g.roups these types of .abstracts under Tr~~Abstracts. To this category he adds ~~.!, andStylized Abstracts. ExtraCts, according to htrn, i.analogous to an abstract' and is drawn in directquotation form.from·the abstracting paper. When,machines are use d to select extracts, the result-ing abstract is called 'auto-abstr!-'Ct'. The~-ed Abstract'!. on the other hand; are thoseabstracts which are designed to increase theconsistency of their analysis, reliability for theirexploitation;' and, potentiality for automaticp r oces sing , In this category, when abstracts usesome general guidelines to extract informationfrom the source material under' given headingssuch as (purposes, procedures, findings). Theresulting abstract is called Formatted Ab'straill.But when they use, 'headings' or 'role indicators'in conjuction with subject matter selected from-source material such art abstract is called ~-~ic Abs!!:.!£!, but the use of symbols torepresent a defined set of role indicators', makethem different abstracts called SchematicAbstrac~.

However, when abstracts include someelements of criticism they are called ~!li£!!.~~, but such ab st r act a-a r-e generallydiscourage d by experts on the ground that authorsof abstracted documents would also want tor~plyto the criticiSM contained in the' abstracts for'which ab str acting journal would not Hnd time andspace ,to publish the rn, Hence, they argue suchabstracts should not be 'permitted. Further, theyplead, even the abstractors may not have enoughinsight_ to newer ideas di s cu s aed in the documentsin many ca se s , They, .however , permit the useof quotation to indicate an author's point of viewwhere an abstractor may be feeling uneasy insubscribing to what has be-en said in his abstract.

TYPES OF ABSTRACTS

Abstracts are further grouped by thetype of their .abat r acto r a, such as, author~~I!. subject-authoritr..!-!!.!!!:actl!.,.and ~ro£f:ssional abstrac;ts. The author abstracts arewritten by the author of the paper or article.Some journals, like American Documentation(noVltJournal of Ame~&;;-iety for InformationSCienw require their contributors to sendabstracts of their contributions alongwith themanuscripts while the editor of Herald of!d£rary SCience prepares on his ••w n, "beabstracts of the articles selected for publicationin the journal. Author abstracts' are prompt butprone to variations in quality and at times theytend to be more like 'pseudo-abstracts' (f.seudo-abstracts has been defined by T.E.R. Singer(9) also as an abstract of such a paper which hasnot yet been and may never, be written althoughits abstract was outlined. written in a hurry tomeet some deadline).

Ann Lib sd Doe

However, increasinl use is be ing made oflood author abstracts in the primary literature.These ab.tract. are R'enerally more detailed. Theyare therefore also used as a basis to develop it inreduced and edited form for publication.

Subiect-apthority abstracts, on the other ',ahand, are prepared by specialiste, with know le dgeof a field and traininl in abstractinl. The qualityof such abstracts ill always good but usually at thecost of much-needed promptness since th eae spe c ia-lish prepare abstracts in addition to their own nor"mal duties in the field of their specialization andhence have little time for abstracting work.\, ~!-~ abstrach, however, have the advant,age ofcontrol on time, format and standard with addedbenefit of language efficiency. These abstracts,however, lack the specialist's facility of backgroundand knowledge in the case of the s-ubject authorityabstracts.

There are varied opinions about the merits (or otherwise of the se types of abstracts. The find-ings of an Association of Special Libraries &Information Bur·eaux (ASLIB) inquiry (1932) addr eeeed to scientific organisations, favour authorabstracts if it is written from the viewpoint ofusers. But according to a survey conducted by theRoyal Society (1948), only 7 out of 30 abstr actingservices use author abstract8 as a regular feature;2 only frequently and 18 intermittently to a lesseror greater extent. The FlD-UNESCO Survey (1948).on the other hand, shows even les ser use of authorabstracts.

Nevertheless, author abstracts still conti-nue to be used for reasons of content and more forsaving of time in their preparation. The Btol oz icalAb8tract~ for example, use a large number ofsuch abstracts. The Library and Info r rnat iem~cience Abstracts has also started us ing them whenavailable.

Two abstracts of one and the same paperwhen compared however, show a marked varianceA good example of this is the article on 'A FilmSystem for the Duplication of Termatrex Cards',liW- C. W. Baker and others, published in ~~~EDocumentation (now, lournal of American Soci~.Lfor Information Sciencet 18:55-58, April 1967,with an author abstract, has also been abstractedbyM.J. Roberts in Libr~~~~~(now, Library and Information Scienc e Ab~ract")18:368, October-December, 1967. The two.·bstracts are reproduced below for comparison:

Author Abstract(American Documentation) now Journal ofAmerican Society for Information Science}.

The Termatrex information retrieval.yetern, marketed by the Jonkers Business

vol. Z6No. 1-4 (Mar - Dec) 1979

Machines, Inc. uses large plastic cards contain .•inl drilled holes. Duplicating the plastic cardsto make identical copies for distribution requtr »ed multiple drilling and is co st lv, timeconsum-ing and error-prone •. The Eastman KodakCompany has dev el qped a method C?fphotOlraph-ing the plastic card8 on cut sheet film approxi-m~L2!!~f the~~~_q£~e TermatJ:rex cards. The film sheets can be manipulated~~e manner as the ori«inal plallticcards. The problems of supplying duplicatedecks is easily handled by photographic copiesof one original Termatrex deck.Subject-authority Abstract (Library andInformation Science Abstracts).

The Termatrex information retrievalsystem utilizes plastic card s containing drilL-ed holes. Each card represents a descriptor,and each hole in a given~iL.~~~~~~e. Superimposition of the cards makesit pos sible..!Q. not~~ol~~ in..££.l!l!!!Q!!..Duplicating the plastic cards to make identicalcopies for distribution required multiple drill-ing and is costly, t ime conaurrri ng and error-prone. The E.astman Kodak Company has deve-loped a method of producing black and whitefilm duplicates of- Termatrex card deck. Filmcards can be euperimposed and used in the samemanner aa the Termatrex c ard s , The eize ofthe film card is approximatel y half that of theTermatrex card. A plastic viewing plaque hallbeen constructed to facilitate the reading ofU!~can!.~li~il~s and the-!!oracemodules /have been corner out to ens ur e prop~2.!"~1&!2.!! .

The difference between the two is more ofI

detailed information from the viewpoint of usersin the subject-speciality abstracts than for anyother reason. The two v e r s Ion s are largely commonin their verbatim reporting except a few changeshere and there.

ABSTRACTING SERVICES

Consequent to the J 957 Sputnik e ucc e ae , agood number of abstracting services were establish __ed in the .Un it ed States to speed up the work of liter-ature processing to catch up with the advancemeftt·in sp a c e t ec hnol ogy: so much so that a NationalFederation of Science Ab st r act ing and IndexingServices (NFSAIS) W •• II established in 1958. In theproce S8 of this development, mechanics of infor_mation extr acting, its st or ag e and retrieval r ecetv-ed much of attention. Cornpute r s were also used tomake this process quicker and faster (10).

Libraries are major consumer of suchee rv ice s but no dialogue exipte between the uae r sand processors of these·servicell. Some attemptswere made by a few of the services in thl!oUnited

?"<>'<~},,~t::.".:-'--.c ., ~"4'\

/:.c- / A~c.~:jOIJ.':{§C '\.'V '\......•.•. '7' ,~(~'I )~H;1'1'1\ ) ""/'. , ", \ D•.te .....• ····_· ...• ··-.1

'--

17

ANIS KlIJRSHID

States to limit the numbe r of abstr'actin~/indexin~peri'Odicals accordin~ to the needs of the libraryuae r a but they were criticized for thus inhibitin~inclusion of non-used periodicals in their· servicesand thereby r edu ci ng the size of their cowe r ag e u n,Sitnilar feedback provided by the 'National Lend iugLibrary for Science and Technolo~y, Boston Spain En~land [ NLL, now called Lending Division ofthe British LibFary), to the Abstractin~ and Inde xingSe rvj.ce e in En~land has, howevoer, resulted intowider cove r ag e ~f the literature.

The structuring of subjects in abstrac~ingservices, however, divide II them in two gr.u}\e.Oneis called DisciEline-orlented_services direct~ tothe advancement of kn owl e dg e in an academic field.The Millsion-oriented services, as opposed to this,attempts at the '!!olution of a complex problem in asociety" (I2).

STANDARDS FOR ABSTRACTING

The abstracting services usually prepare andfollow written rnanu al a for purposes of uniformitybut even then variations in substance, length andstructure are very oorn rrion between abstracts of oneservice and also' between one service and the other.Even departments / divisions within one library(Library of Ccng r e s e] , at times, follow differin~practices acco rd ing to their own policies (13). Herea~ain, the format, ·the form of headings and indexingpractices also differ to a larger extent. Nationalstandards on the preparation (editing) of abstractsare in vogue in Ar~entine, Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic', France,Hung az y, India, Poland, Portugal, RomaniarTurkey,USA and Venezuela (14). All standards require, inthe main, brevity, conciseness and precision, useof standard abbreviations and symbols, objectivity,and factual_treatment of the texts, abstracted, butmost of them differ in structure and formulationbetween themselves. Ba r r tng Hung a r ian and Polishstandards, none of the other prescribe standards forsubject he adi nge and translation of titles. A world-wide ~uide far preparation of author's abstracts is,however, in the process of finalization under theae~is of International Or~anization for Standardizat-ion/Technical Committee 46(ISO/TC46).

The American Standard Periodical TitleAbbreviation (New York: United States of AmericaStandards Institute, 1963,·1 USASIZ39. 5-1963 I) isan attempt to correct faulty linkage between thecitation and document. 'T~e American Society forTesting and Materials (AST~has devised anotherfive-character machine readable Coden System forpe riodleal titles. The World List of Scie.!!ll!!£Periodicals (1900-~, (London: Butterworth,J 963-65) (i s) also publish abbreviated periodicaltitle 'e but mutually exclusive for each word in thetitle. The Chem.ls.!!~bstract...2~~j£As"Com~·,reheneive List of Periodicals for ChemisttL!.!!£..Chemical Encineerina:, therefore, contains four

18

forms of title s [ 1-The full title of the journal,2- The full title abbreviated acco r d tng to theAmerican Standard, 3-The ASTM Coden; and, 4-The J>.J>.Crules) (16).

GENERAL RULES FOR J>.BSTRJ>.CTlNG

Despite various attempts at standardization,variations still persist in b tbl log r aphrc and contentdescription of the documents. Abstractin~ service.have rules of their own. J>.general wo r king ~uide-line drawn up by Bernier (17), can however, besummed up as under:-

1. Material, data, methods that are newand unique and their appl icat iorr.If given,and, emphasized by the author in texta longwirb the co ncl.udtng theory shouldbe described; references to earlierabstract where necessary be given.

2. The length of abstracts is dependentupon the nature and possible use of thearticles. But the principle of brevityand clarity, should be a ~uiding factorin deciding the length of an abstract.

3. Redundancy, repetition and circumlo-cution should be avoided in abstracts,Such excessive verbiage as'rthe authorreports", "it may be said that", etc.should be avoided and such expressionsas "dust particles", "owin~ to the factthat"and " dur ing the year 1975" etc. ,should be shortened to " dust" "owin~to", " since'! 'because" &: "in 1975"r espe ct ive ly. Similarly such many-worded expressions as shown below,can easily be shortened to one-wordexpressions without affecting the mean-ing:

Q..!!.!-worded E~I!.!.'L~n

It appears thatOn the basis ofDu r irig the period of timeLed to the production ofBy means ofIn order toProved to be/was consideredto beWith reference toIn a slow mannerSe rv es the function s ofTakes place

Appa r e nt l yFrom/by/because

WhileGave/resultedBy /withTo

WasAboutSlowlyIsOccurs

4. Standard abbreviations and symbolsshould be used in the text consistentlyin a further attempt to shorten it.

5. The abstracts should always be clearand unarnbtguou s enabling the user to

Ann Llb Sei Doe

declde whether he .hould use the orilln-al article or not.

6. The ab.tracts should be .ilned enablingu.er to judge the quality of the abatractand the authority of the ab.tractor.

7. The ablltr'actll should be edited centrallyand the ab.tract-orll should be ahownthe edited copy to enable them to irnp r ovethe quality of ab.tractll in future.

8. A .tandard for format, heading e , docu-mentation. transliteration and tran.~-ion of the title s, org anization andcontents of the abstracts, and, placingof lIignaturell of the ablltractors shouldbe formulated, and made known to theablltractorll for cone iate nt ly followins it.

9. The language of the abstractll should bereadable and sufficiently exp r e s s ive ,

10. Indexing of abstracts should, on theother hand, be correlative and morethan an orderly arrangement of labelledr efe r enc e s , A policy for ar r ang eme ntof ab st r act e by titles or classes or underchain links of subjects should also bedecided and followed consistently.

s'rEPS IN ARC:;'rRACTlNG

An article/a document senerally pa s se athroush the followins sta«es from its appearance inprint to its pr oc ea sins into an abstract form:

I. Selection of article s , pape r s and doc u-.m ent s , by the editor for a bat r a ct ing ,

2. AIIsiS nment of the mate rial to theabstractors a c co r d ing to the need andand speCiality of the document and theability and proficiency of the abstractors.

3. Ab st r act ing of the mate rials ac co r dtngto the manual prepared for a bat r act ingpurpose;

4. Editins and revlslns of the abstract-text by the editor.

5. ASllisnins subject and index terms,

The steps that an abat r act or is required totake in p r epa r tng and abstract can be summed upall under:

I. R eadins of the abstractins docurne ntaattentively and carefully, with a view tomark the portion II, in the text, de s cr ib-ins the intent of the author, methods,appratu., new ideas, information and

''Yo1. 26,N •• 1-4 (Mar - Dec) 1979

data. concluding theory, and everythinlnew that the users may like to know inthe abstractinl document. .

2. Preparing a draft of the ab.tract textin the light ~f the instructionll containedin the manual, prepared for this purpOlle,and in keeping with the practice. of theablltractinl se rvtce s ,

3. Revising the draft with logical and mean-inSful cohe sion of the text in sood andreadable lansuase, ke eptng in view theprinciples of brevity, clarity, and docu-mentation of bibliographic reference ••

4. Revis ins and cor rect ing the text and thelansuase of the abstract to make .it read-able. cohe sive , log ice l in meanins andcontext, and eliminatins redundancy,repetition and circumlocu'tion in it.

5. TypinS the final draft with double-lIpacilW'with necessary and sufficient identificat-ion of the author, full and correct do cu-m entation of the document with initiahof the abstractor at the end.

CONCLUSION

Ab st r a ct II, by and larse, play an importantrole in the content analysis of the bafflins mass ofliterature of our time scattered over many fields.The rules for abat r a ct ing have been in exilltence forIons and have little ch ang ed, Newer methods andexperiments have, however, been made recently inan attempt to attain uniformity in itll formulation.structure and quicke r dissemination of the mfo r m at ,ion abstracted. Automatic ab st r act ing 'or e xt r act ingprocess of texts are among them .. The output thusobtained was rno s t upt odat e and widely-covered butat the same time prone to many e r ro r a, It is not themachine, makins an abstract.' nor ill it the qualityof an abstract it self that counts in the use of anabstract but it is the correctness of the informationcontained in it in the context of the total output ofthe related literature, and even more. the p r orrrpt ;nes s with which it is made available that mattersmost to research workers. Many would, as studiespoint out, prefer an informative abstract even atthe cost of reduced cov e r age , Subject specialistsas abet r act or s seem to be favoured but the increasinrnumber of ab st r act ing services have resulted intofull-time professional abstractors who are senerallynot experts in all fields of coverage of the service.Attempts at standardization' of btb l iog r aphi c de ac r ipt ,ion and structuring of a bet r act s themselves haveresulted in manuals and standards. Variation isstill in vog ue . Subject scatter has resulted inredundancy in abstractins documents but theirsubject alantins in each ab at r act ing case euppo rt stheir existence. In brief, abstracts in themselvesare but an extension of the oyer-all library se r vtc e

19

ANIS KllJRSHID

and serve as a useful «uide to the publishedliterature of the time thr ough the libraries. Theythus perform a double role. 1_ create awarenessof the litera:ture. and. 2-promote use of librarie sand literature.

REFERENCES

1. Cit~n Kent. Allen. ~ation Analysisand Retrieval (New York: Becker and Hayes.Inc. ;-l97i}p6. (inlormationSciencesSeries)

2. Clapp. Verner W. "Role of Bibli~raphicOrganization in Contemporary CivNization"!!!.Shera. Jesse H. and Eagen. Mal'garet E.e ds , Biblio!(raphic Orp;anization. (Chicago:Preas. 1951}. pp 3-23.

3. ~.it~.J.!!Brynt. Margaret. 1llWiolraphi~~cts an<!...!!!!!~. New Brunswick.N. J.: Graduate School of Library Service.Rutgers z; The State University. 1960. p 2.(The State of the Library Art. ed , by Ralph.R. Shaw. Vol. 2. part 2).

4. Tate. Fred A. and'Wood. James L. "Librar.ies and Abstracting and Indexing Services"Lib. Trends 16 (Ja. '68). I Issue titleScience Abstracting Services - Commercia~Institutional and Personal; ed , by FosterE. Mohrhardt I pp 354. 355.

5. Ref~. pp 30-35:

6. Kyle. Barbara. "Current DocumentationTopic s and Their Relevance in Social

Science Literature. "Revue de La Documen.-tation 24 (August. 1951). pp 101-11.

1. Bernier Charles L. "Abstracts and Abstradoing". In '~ncycl.2P.~d~~rary and Wor-mation Science Vol. I, 1968.·pp 16-11.

8. ~~ pp 126-21.

9. Cited in Ref. I. p J 21.

10. Mohrhardt. Foster E. "Introduction" I toScience Abstractin« Services .•. «Issue of)I Library Trends 1968. 16 (Jan), 303, 304.

I 1. gef. 4. p 359.

12. Adams, Scott and Baker. Dale B. "Missionand Discipline Orientation in Scientific andIndexing Services" Lib. Tr~!. 1968,16 (Jan). 307-22

13. ~..!. pp 360-61.

14. UNESCO. International Standardization ofLibrary and Documentation Techniques.Paris. 1912. 241p.

15. Replaced by B-!itish Union Catalo!(ue.2!Periodical!!. 1964 (London: Butterworth,1969).

16. get. -t. pp ? .63.

11. ~. pp 22-25.

'20- AI1I1 Lib Sei Doc