Page 96 - DLIS006_INFORMATION SOURCES AND SERVICES

Unit 5: Alerting and Bibliographic Services

require the joint effort of more than one organization working in similar or closely Notes
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.

Example: 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.

Steps in CAS

There could be several ways of rendering CAS. However the general steps followed are given
below:

Review or scan documents immediately upon receipt.
Select information and record individual documents pertinent to the programme of the
individuals of the organization being served.

Compare the documents/information with the needs of users being served.
Send notification to the users about items or information of interest to them.

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.
could be bibliographical (such as a list of references) with or without abstracts; discursive,
(ex. a Newsletter) in nature
attempts to inform its users to recent development or news as quickly as possible and
make browsing convenient and easy for the user.

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