Page 241 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Information Sources and Services

Notes Bibliography of Bibliographies

These are lists of bibliographies to help users in choosing bibliographies. They help in tracing
bibliographies. The bibliographic control of bibliographies presents many difficulties due to
many reasons, one of them being the huge number of total number of usable bibliographies.
Besides this, it is difficult to find out whether or not a bibliography exists on a given topic,
suitable for a particular user, and whether it is worthwhile getting hold of it if not in the stock.
The last reason is the cost, as the major bibliographies are expensive to buy and house.

National Bibliographic Control

The national library ensures the bibliographic control of all the books or book-like documents
published in that particular country. It has the provision of legal deposit by a host of different
programs such as a cataloguing in publication service or similar mandatory practices.
By cataloguing in publication service, the Library of Congress gives a complete catalogue entry
of a book to any publisher who sends a final draft or some form of galley proof of a book
currently in production.

Universal Bibliographic Control

The bibliographic control of documents at the international level has always been a problem.
Librarians have been concerned about this problem, which is increasing over the last five
decades due to enormous increase in number of publications as well as variety of publications.
There are no known universal bibliographies as such. However, after the Second World War,
UNESCO took leadership and emphasized that if all nations maintain their current national
bibliographies, it might lead to having an effective control on the publications universally.
Many years have passed but still nothing concrete has come out of this.
The Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC) program sponsored by IFLA in 1974, appeared to be
far more realistic, as it was based on the recognition of the fact that effective bibliographic
control must begin within individual countries, and that the exchange of bibliographic
information between them is facilitated if there is international agreement on bibliographical
description. The UBC program has since been merged with IFLA’s another program christened
the international MARC and is presently known as UBCIMP.

Bibliographical Activities in India

In India, presently a large number of organizations are engaged in providing bibliographic
services at various levels. At the national level organizations like National Library, Calcutta,
erstwhile INSDOC (now NISCAIR) in Science and Technology, National Medical Library in
Medical Information, and NASSDOC in Social Sciences are carrying out various bibliographic
activities that involve international and national information sources. The National Library is
bringing out the Indian national Bibliography since 1957. The Association of Indian Universities
(AIU) has been bringing out a series of bibliographies on Doctoral Dissertations accepted by
Indian Universities since 1957. NASSDOC has brought out bibliographies on various subjects/
topics in social sciences. Catalogues of Scientific Serials from various regions of India by erstwhile
INSDOC are some initiatives either direction.
New ideas are generated in each and every branch of human activity from time to time. Apart
from new ideas we give new interpretation to old ideas, at times we also borrow ideas from
other discipline and try to apply them in a new content. As a result more and more information
are produced in a variety of forms leading to information explosion.

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