Page 95 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Information Sources and Services

Notes volume of scientific and technical information, scientists, engineers, technologists, and managers
face several problems in accessing information, and in keeping themselves abreast of new
developments. The reasons are several.
A few of these are:
The rate at which new information is being generated, even in narrow areas makes it
difficult for a researcher to keep himself abreast of new developments in his area of
specialization.

The increasing interdisciplinary nature of research. The fact that research and development
is no longer done by individuals but by teams of researchers belonging to different
disciplines has resulted in the scattering of information.

The useful information can occur in a variety of document types not identified/located by
the users easily.

Types of CAS

Four types of Current Awareness Services (CAS) are described in this unit with their characteristic
features. These types of service are: Contents-by-journal, Documentation Bulletin, Research-in-
Progress Bulletin, and Newspaper Clippings Services.

Contents-by-Journal Service: This type of service is provided by the library or
documentation centre, by distributing a publication which contains copies of contents
pages of journals in a broad subject area, e.g. medical sciences.

Example: A very good example of a Contents-by-Journal service is the publication
called Current Contents published by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Philadelphia
(USA).
The simplest way in which this can be done is to duplicate the contents pages of journal
issues and circulate them individually or in a compiled form to users. The Contents-by-
Journal Service is perhaps the cheapest and quickest way of providing a degree of current
awareness.
Documentation Bulletins or Current Awareness Lists: This is by far the most predominant
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 organization for use
within the organization as well as by professional or learned bodies, international agencies
and commercial organizations for use by any user interested in the subject areas covered
by the list.

Example: 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

90 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY