Page 92 - DLIS407_INFORMATION AND LITERATURE SURVEY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Unit 11: Evaluation of Information Sources in Social Science

Such studies as Securities Market Behaviour, Financial Analysis of Companies, and Trends in Notes
credit allocation in commercial banks, Sociological Studies on crimes, historical studies, and
the like depend primarily on secondary data. Year books, Statistical reports of government
departments, reports of public organisations like Bureau of Public Enterprises, Census Reports
etc. serve as major data sources for such research studies.

Advantages

y Secondary data, if available, can be secured quickly and cheaply.
y Wider geographical area and longer reference period may be covered without much cost. Thus
the use of secondary data extends the researcher’s space and time reach.
y The use of secondary data broadens the database from which scientific generalizations can
be made.
y The use of secondary data enables a researcher to verify the findings based on primary data.

Disadvantages/limitations

y The most important limitation is the available data may not meet, our specific research
needs.
y The available data may not be as accurate as desired.
y The secondary data are not up-to-date and become obsolete when they appear in print, because
of time lag in producing them.
y Finally information about the whereabouts of sources may not be available to all social
scientists.
One of the major problems of secondary services in social sciences especially in developing countries
is that many libraries and documentation centers are involved in producing such services. In contrast
to this, in developed countries such services are produced by either commercial organisations or by a
national agency. Consequently there is lesser duplication and wastage in such efforts.
The secondary information services from developing nations have their own limitations. None of
them is comprehensive, authoritative and self supporting. Similarity the secondary services among
themselves have enough duplication in contents and coverage and these services are terribly under-
used. The mortality rate of such services is as high as their birth rate, Most of these services are not
supported by effective document supply which is very essential in a resource scarce environment.
The formal structure of most of the secondary services is very complex. These services are not only
incomplete in coverage but also faulty in subject access, and arbitrary in providing keywords. The
searcher is not sure as to how much information he could access by consulting such services and bow
much will be missed. Specific types of materials used by social scientists like archival material, statistical
data, election results, newspapers reports, and varied types of grey literature, arc not adequately
covered by secondary services. Many senior scholars have experience of locating important piece
of information in books/journals which has never been highlighted by classification and/or subject
indexing term provided by indexes in secondary services.
The produces of secondary services lave to improve these bibliographical terms of coverage; timely
publication and modify them to suit the requirement users. The visibility of such services have to be
increased. The basic reasons of inadequate use of secondary services in social sciences is not so much
from deficiencies but in the methods how such services are created, presented and marketed. It is
heartening to note that the use of such services is increasing.

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