Page 69 - DLIS407_INFORMATION AND LITERATURE SURVEY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Information and Literature Survey in Social Sciences

Notes 9.2 Sources of Information in Social Science

Information is recognized as a vital source and the basic need, for the progress of humanity and the
basic need, for the progress of humanity and the development of a nation, as a whole. It means that
every piece of information should be extracted from wherever it is available, and provided to the
users at the right time, in the right proportion, without delay of time. Only then, can that piece of
information be put to its maximum use.
Information is available in a number of forms. It may appear as a word meaning, background
information of a term regarding its origin, use of words, the pronunciation of words, etc.
It may also be as state or the art report, annual report, research-in-progress, agreements or contracts,
indexes, abstracts, biographic, guides and atlases etc. All these are some or the other forms in which,
information can be found. Thus it again becomes difficult to analyses as to which source would give
what information. For this, some kind of categorization was needed.

Caution The documents could be arranged according to any of the basic characteristics; it
may be its physical form, information content, purpose, nature of presentation,
etc.

Thus, according to S.R. Ranganathan, the main categories of documents
are:

1. Conventional –Books, periodical publications, maps, atlases etc.
2. Neo-Conventional –Standards, specifications, patents data
3. Non-Conventional –Microcopy, audio, visual, audio-visual
4. Meta-Document-Direct record unmediated by human mind

As categorized by C.W.Hanson

1. Primary – Books, journals, patents, thesis, trade literature, standards
2. Secondary –Abstracting and indexing journals, citation indexes, subject bibliographies,
reviews and surveys

According to Dennis Grogan

1. Primary – Periodicals, research reports, conference proceedings, patents, standards, trade
literature thesis
2. Secondary – Indexing and abstracting services, reviews of progress, reference books
(encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, tables, formulas etc.) treatises, monographs, text
books, etc
3. Tertiary – Yearbooks and directories, bibliographies (list of books, location lists of periodicals,
lists of indexing and abstracting services.), guides to the literature, lists of indexing and
abstracting services.), guides to the literature, lists of research-in-progress, guides to libraries
and sources of information, guides to organizations, etc.

64 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY