Page 110 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Unit 5: Alerting and Bibliographic Services

British Library Document Supply Centre (BLDSC) Notes

British Library Document Supply Centre is a single largest source for all your document needs.
BLDSC is the leading document provider in the world. A rapid and comprehensive document
supply and interlibrary loan service from BLDSC’s extensive collections to researchers and
scholars in all kinds of libraries and organizations is being entertained by this Centre. The
British Library has a large Document Supply Centre dedicated to the supply of copies of journal
articles, books and other materials. The British Library Document Supply Centre at Boston Spa
(Wetherby, Yorkshire) receives some 15000 requests for article copies per working day, 25%
from abroad. 90% of the requests can be met from the own holdings of ca. 50000 current journal
titles. This service is also available through online mode. 75% of request is now electronically
entertained. Delivery is mostly postal delivery of photocopies, less than 2% is per fax. In online
mode if you want to order a copy of a particular journal article or conference paper straightaway,
the Articles Direct service is probably what you are looking for inside web provides options for
searching for relevant journal articles and conference papers as well as ordering them over the
web. Facilities for several other services for more specialist copying of library materials are also
included at their site at (http://www.bl.uk/services/document.html).

Translation Services

In a library, you may have information sources in languages other than know to the users and
staff. With advent of new technology, one can also search information in other languages. In
certain library, as per the policy the publications in a core subject are being acquired in all
languages. In such situation translation of the information to the language known to users
became a necessity. Many libraries provide translation services to the users. Translation service
is an expensive activity and every library cannot afford it. Subject specific national library need
to provide such services to the users. Earlier INSDOC and now NISCAIR, New Delhi used to
provide translation service to the users.

Referral Service

Referral services are different from Reference services. Reference services are provided from the
collection of a library on other side in referral service a user is being referred use the collection
of some other library. Through referral service a user can also be guided to sources other than
libraries. These sources may be some organizations, individuals, specialists, databases, internet
resources.

Task Give some examples of databases for extracting information.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
14. The national library ensures the bibliographic control of all the books or book-like
documents published in that particular country.
15. The ultimate objective of any documentation or information activity is to provide a user
with the information he requires, to the extent he requires, within a reasonable time and
cost.
16. Searching using Information Technology (IT) Tools and Techniques involves searching
manually paper documents of references sources that could be primary, secondary or
tertiary as discussed earlier.

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