Search results

The problems of identification and acquisition of official publications are common to most countries both developed and developing. A study of the availability and use of official publications in libraries was carried out in 1981. 565 libraries in 50 countries were sent questionnaires; the response rate was 35%. Most respondents reported a growing volume of official publications and had ambitious collection development policies. Heavy reliance was placed on deposit but purchase was used as the main tool of collection building. Bibliographic control is seriously deficient and presents problems for tracing new publications. The organization of official publications varies between different parts of the world, from complete integration in the main library stock to wholly separate collections — the latter is most common in North America and Africa. Little information was available about the use of official publications. Interlending arrangements did not appear to be a major issue.

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

Reports on the International Federation of Library Associations 1990 conference. Topics include the new core programme for the advancement of librarianship in the third World and the participation of Iranian and South African members. Concludes that the conference has done IFLA much credit and can only help its growth in influence.

A bibliographic essay on all the sources which one might refer to for European Communities' publications is beyond the scope of this paper, and I have also some mental reservations about how I might organise the topic in order to suggest possible search strategies. One way might be to consider the categories of documents which emerge from the Institutions of the European Communities:

Official publications at the British Library Lending Division include the published and ‘semi‐published’ documents of national and inter‐governmental departments, agencies and fringe bodies, together with local government publications. The maintenance of such a collection presents special problems and the Division has a special section to deal with these. The general principles for selection depend upon the categories being acquired. British official publications published by HMSO are received on a subscription basis. Those not published by HMSO are either selected individually, or acquired under depository arrangements with the issuing Department. British local government publications are being acquired through a firm specializing in local government documentation. Foreign official publications are either acquired on demand, or obtained through back up libraries such as the Official Publications Library of the British Library Reference Division or via international interlibrary loan. There are special arrangements to acquire the output of particular inter‐governmental organizations such as OECD, FAO, Unesco, IAEA and the Division has been a main depository library for all EC publications since 1973. Thousands of official reports from the United States are acquired through agencies such as NTIS and ERIC. Recording and shelving of official publications vary according to the type of publication eg serial, monograph, microfiche etc. Some of the material acquired is indexed in the Division's publication British Reports, Translations and Theses and selected input is forwarded for inclusion in SIGLE (System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe).

Describes the history of the Freshwater Biological Association and its Library. Notes that the library produces a current awareness bulletin listing over 750 freshwater ecology papers each month, an annual bibliography of papers on British freshwaters and undertakes manual and on‐line retrospective information enquiries. Concludes that these flexible national and international networks of information exchange and collaboration survive despite an ever changing spectrum of political philosophies.

Notes that the Environment Council is an umbrella body for environmental organisations in the UK and promotes the work of these organisations as well as providing a forum for debating environmental policy and prioritising ways forward. Describes the work of the Council, its business and environment programme and its information programme. Concludes that environmental organisations no longer have to convince others of the problems but instead provide answers to what should be done and how it should be done.

YOU WILL HAVE seen, no doubt, recent announcements that my wife and I have sold our book‐publishing business of Clive Bingley Ltd to the Munich‐based firm of international reference publishers, Verlag Dokumentation.

IT IS BY direction of NLW'S Subscription Department—to whom I have the good fortune to have been married for nigh on 16 years—that I open my first column of the new year with a lot of gubbins about subscriptions and their administration. Do please read it and, if appropriate, take action, or I'll never hear the end of it.