Page 78 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Unit 4: Information Services and Products

Documentation Bulletins or Current Awareness Lists: This is by far the most predominant Notes
form of current awareness service. In this kind of service the library or documentation
centre scans primary journals and other sources of current information received in the
library to identify potentially useful articles of interest to their users. The bibliographical
details of such articles are collected, and classified or grouped into broad or narrow
subject groups. At periodic intervals the collected bibliographic entries are listed under
the different subject headings, class numbers, or groups. The list is then duplicated and
circulated to users.

A documentation bulletin may include abstracts of papers listed in the bulletin. Current
awareness lists are published or issued both by the library of an organisation for use
within the organisation as well as by professional or learned bodies, international agencies
and commercial organisations for use by any user interested in the subject areas covered
by the list. Examples include current-awareness lists produced by professional bodies are
Chemical Titles of the Chemical Abstracts Service, and Current Chemical Papers of the
Chemical Society, U.K.

Research-in-Progress Bulletins: As the name suggests it alerts users to new research projects
and progress made in ongoing research projects. Such current -awareness services’ usually
require the joint effort of more than one organisation working in similar or closely
related research areas. A parent body which funds or controls a group of research
organization such as CSIR, ICAR in India could also bring out Research-in-Progress
bulletins. An example of this type of service is the United States Department of Agriculture’s
(USDA) service, called Current Research Information System (CRIS). All USDA laboratories
and. \research stations contribute their input to CRIS. A research-in-progress bulletin
usually contains information about the laboratory at which the project is being done,
names of principal and associate researchers, funds and sources of funds, duration of the
project, and special equipment in use if any. In addition it includes a narrative description
of the research project and/or progress achieved till date.
Newspaper Clipping Service: Newspapers are a current-awareness media, since they publish
news of recent happenings on the political, social, and economic front of a nation or
region. Newspapers carry useful information to everyone from housewives to top
management of companies and cabinet ministers. Many organizations maintain newspaper
clippings and have a separate section for this service. Examples include: Times of India
(daily newspaper) maintains a comprehensive collection of newspaper clippings that can
be referred to as and when necessary. Some libraries send copy of the clippings to identified
users for keeping them up-to-date with the latest news in their area of interest.

4.7.2 Current Awareness Services - Characteristics

A current awareness service has the following characteristics:
usually in the form of a publication

attempts to bring information that is current, new or of recent origin to the attention of its
users

usually confined to a well-defined subject area or topic, though topics from related areas
are also covered in the service
does not seek to answer any specific questions that the user may have

sometimes confined to a given type of literature, e.g. patents, standards, etc.

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