A SURVEY OF' THE LITERATURE SEARCHING SERVICES PROVIDED BY BRITISH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES.

by

John Matthews

A Master's Dissertation, submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Master of Arts (or Master of Science) degree of the Loughborough University of Technology.

September 198)

Supervisor: T. Whitehall, BSc(Lond.), A.F.Inst.Pet., M.I.Inf.Sc. Department of Library and Information Studies

@)John Matthews, 198) l

ABSTRAC'l"

This dissertation attempts to study the current ·awareness and retrospective searching services . presently available in British university libraries. Both manual and computer-based services were included in the survey. The information for the study was gathered via a postal questionnaire which was sent out to all the British university libraries, including the colleges of the universities of· London and Wales. Useful replies were received from forty-seven institutions, making the survey.the most comprehensive detailed study of information services in university libraries since a SCONUL sponsored survey of 1973. The dissertation begins by giving a brief outline, taken from the literature, of the development of academic inform­ ation services from their inception in 1939 to the present. The second chapter deals with the methodology involved, including how the questionnaire was formulated and the methods used to improve the response rate. The third chapter contains a discussion of the results obtained by the survey, and this, along with the tables of results to which it

constantly refers. fo~ the bulk o~ the dissertation. Throughout the third chapter comparisons are made between the resul ts obtained by this survey and the results gathered bl'" the SCONUL survey of 1973. In this wal'" the developments of a decade of academic information provision are·· traced. The dissertation concludes that, unlike other recent studies, there is little evidence in this survey to suggest that manual services are still more popular than computer-based ones. It also suggests that the danger to the future expliotation of computer-based services comes from the temptation to charge clients for the services they use. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank all those librarians and information officers who provided the information for this survey. The . questionnaire they filled in was very long and I appreciate the trouble that many people took in order to provide me with clear and comprehensive answers. I would especially like to thank Mr. Ralph Adam, of Skinner's Library, the City University and Mr. lI'ob Rhodes of the Pilkington Library, Loughborough University, for their help and suggestions. Finally I must thank Mr. Tom Whitehall, whose guidance and encouragement have·

helped me throughout my work. A SURVEY' OF THE LITERATURE SEARCHING SERVICES PROVIDED BY

BRITISH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES.

INTRODUCTION The purpose of this survey 1

CHAPTER ONE The development of literature searching .5 services in university libraries: a review from the literature

CHAPTER TWO . Methodology 19

CHAPTER THREE Discussion of results 23

. CHAPTER FOUR. Conolusions 50

Tables 52'

Appendices 69

References 85

Fibliography 92 -1-

INTRODUCTION

THE PURPOSE OF TRIS SURvEY:'

In December 1973, at the University of Bradford, SCONUL held an exchange of experience seminar on information services in university libraries. To provide that seminar with information on the state of those services, a survey was carried out. The findings of this survey were circulated as a preprint and were subsequently published as an appendix to the seminar proceedings~1) At that time the survey provided " •••• the first report on the state of the art in the relatively new phenomenon of information provision by university 11braries ." (2)

S~nce then there have been several similar studies made of the information services in academic libraries, which help, to some extent, to chart the developments which have taken place over the past ten years(3). No other survey, however, has attempted to cover all the university libraries covered in 1973, and therefore no direct comparisons could be made. It is the intention of this survey to compare Hall and Ayres' findings with the current situation, and to attempt to show the major changes that have taken place in the provision of information services in university libraries over a decade. To this end it was intended that a similar questionnaire would be sent out asking for the same information that was provided in the 1973 survey. However, this rather ambitious project has had to be modified. After an initial list of questions was drawn up, covering all aspects of the information -2-

servioes that were looked at by SCONUL, it was realised that suoh a list would produoe a questionnaire of massive proportions. As it oould be expeoted that the longer the, questionnaire beoame, the fewer would be the answers to it, and as a good response rate was very important to this survey, the need for data was tempered by the need for a relatively small number of questions. Finally a oompromise was reaohed by limiting this survey to the literature searohing servioes, that is, basioally, the manual and oomputerised forms of retrospeotive searohing and ourrent awareness. The exaot meaning of these and other terms as used in this dissertation will be defined at the end of the introduotion. The other information that Hall and Ayres gathered, (data on referenoe servioes, the publioi ty and promotion of servioes eto.) was left out of this survey. Despite' the omission of questions on these servioes; the questionnaire, when typed up, ran to seven sides of A4 and amounted to some seventy-eight questions (one respondent kindly oounted them for me). Al though the. soope of this survey is, therefore, not quite as broad as that of its predeoessor in 1973, the bulk of the information servioes provided in university libraries are oovered. As a result some direot, and hopefully useful, oomparisons oan be made between the two surveys. This dissertation is not oomprehensive enough to be a seoond."state of the art" report on the provision of information servioes in university libraries, but it oomes as olose as any to providing a olear pioture of the ourrent provision of those servioes oonoerned with literature searohi~g. -)-

At this point it may be helpful to provide a few definitions of some of the major terms which will be used in this disser- tation. A great number of varying activities can be included in the broad term "information services", and although information work may sometimes ,run along similar ,lines to the work carried out in a reference library, there are significant differences. A reference service is concerned basically with giving advice on the use of sources such as the library catalogue, bibliographies, indexes and reference books and suggesting likely useful material. An information service is less bibliographical and more factual, that is, it is concerned with the active dissemination of the information itself, rather than a collection of a number of "possible" references. Such a service implies a close relationship between those providing it and those who receive it (often referred to as

"clients"). Of the information services considered in this survey, three terms need defining here: the retrospective search, the current awareness service and the selective dissemination of

informatio~ (SDI). The retrospective search is quite common in most university' libraries and can be defined as a search for information or documents on a particular subject (or combination of subjects) which is not specifically limited to recent documents. Current awareness (CA) services are defined by Kemp, in his Dook on the subject, as " •••• systems for reviewing newly available documents, selecting items relevant to the needs of an individual or group, and -4-

recording them so that notifications may be sent to those individuals or groups to whose needs they are related." (4) SDI is a particular form of current awareness service, where the records of new documents are periodically compared with a statement of a client's (or group of clients') requirements, usually known as a "profile". The client (or group) is then sent notification of those documents whose records match the requirements in the profile. -5-

1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERATURE SEARCHING SERVICES IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES: A REVIEW FROM THE LITERATURE

The services oonsidered in this survey (that is those whioh , require some form of searoh through the literature) are only part of a wider range of services whioh are designed to allow the library user to get,the most out of the resources available. These ,information services include not only ourrent awareness (CA) and retrospective search facilities, but also general and subject enquiry services, the provision of bibliographies, literature guides, and in some cases translations servioes. Most academic libraries now run some sort of user education

programme, designed to help libr~ users to carry out their own literature searohes, whioh may either replace or supplement , the information services mentioned above. As we look at the CA and retrospective searoh servioes provided in university libraries we must be aware of their place as part of a larger range of services which are now available. Information services have developed largely as a result of the "information explosion". Neal, pointing out that what is really important is the quality and relevance of material, prefers to use the term "publioations explosion".(5) Alongside ~ this there has been an increase both in the number of readers and in the size and complexity of academic'libraries, resulting .' in problems for teaching staff, who have less time in which to do more complex searohes through an expanding literature. Maurice Line, ,a prolifio writer on the subject of academic information servioes, has written several articles calling for -6-

more work to be done in assessing the needs of researchers, and in attempting to satisfy those needs.(6) According to him information services are ultimately a necessity, and the longer we suffer under the weight of the "publications explosion" the more likely we are to turn to some form of information service to ease our problems. Line was not the first to call for the provision of information services however, this can be traced back to an article by Wilfred Ashworth written as early as 1939.(7) Ashworth proposed that scientists and social scientists working in university libraries should be supplied with the same sort of service that was then available 'to research workers in special libraries, and he even laid down some guidelines as to the level of provision required. No action was taken as a result of Ashworth's proposals however, and the negative attitude of the average university librarian to information services in Britain during the 1940's and 1950's was summed up in one sentence by R.O. Mackenna in 1956 " •••• the primary function of a university is the development of trained minds." (8)

The real development of i~ormation services did not begin until the second half of the 1960's. In 1967 the University

Grants Committee produced ~ report on libraries which devoted a few paragraphs to reference and information services, including one paragraph on CA services(9). This document, which became known as the Parry report, called ~or investigations to be made to assess the demand for information services, and commented that "There is a need for the teaching staff to -7-

be supplied with information on the most recent publications in their fields and this is greatest in subjects where recently-published work is of paramount importance, where published abstracting services and literature guides are inadequate and slow to appear, and where articles in peripheral fields, likely to be published in scattered journals·, have frequent relevance." (10) The Parry report, as Line has pointed out, carefully noted the problem but unfortunately did little about it·. (11) A more positive influence was that of the Office for Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), which supported several information projects in different libraries in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The availability of machine­ readable tapes (a by-product of the computerisation of the type-setting of certain abstracting journals) meant that from the mid 1960's onwards more and more information was available on computer data-bases. This gave libraries the opportunity to provide a computerised SDI service, and four OSTI projects in particular took advantage of this. In 1969 computerised SDI services using Chemical Titles were supplied ·free to 500 final year research students in 65 . . (12) universities. An Experimental Information Unit was set up at Oxford University, which ran the Liason Scientist Experiment producing computerised SDI from Chemical Abstracts,(13) and

the BA Previews Project offering SDI to biologists.(14) An on-line version of the medical data-base MEDLARS, called MEDUSA, was used to produce a current awareness service at Newcastle university.(15)

In addition to these computer-based projects, OSTI helped to finance several other schemes. From 1966 to 1969 OSTI -8-

financed the Project for Evaluating the Benefits from University Libraries (PEBUL) at Durham University, which included a manual CA service for social scientists.(16) An experimental personal information service, again for social scientists, was run at Bath University from 1969 to 1971. This project, under the direction of Maurice Line, provided principally a manual CA service.(17) The most interesting development, however, was the establishment by OSTI of experimental information officers at Birmingham, Cardiff, Imperial College, Salford, Strathclyde and Sussex as part of a three year experiment. OSTI hoped, -through these appointments, to be able to evaluate the role of information officers in promoting library resources and introducing new information services to library users. Whilst these projects were in operation, other libraries were sta.rting to develop their own information services. The City University was among the first to do this, establishing in 1966 an Information/Research Section, which was on a par with the more traditional library divisions of acquisitions, cataloguing and reader services. Surrey and Loughborough followed suit, both creating a specific information section. Indeed by 1971 Bath, Brad!ord, Lancaster, East Anglia and Aberystwyth all provided some sort of information service via subject specialist information officers, while Bel!ast, Newcastle, Reading, Sheffield and Southampton university libraries had information officers who covered broad subject fields. The availability of information services in academic had increased rapidly from being virtually non-existant in 1965, to a point where, by the beginning of the 1970's, at -9-

least 22 university and college libraries had developed some level of information provision.(18)

This development was most noticeable in the technological universities, which were mostly former colleges of advanced technology (CATs), and to a lesser extent in the "new" universities, which were established between 1961 and 1968. The civic, or "red brick", universities usually came a poor third in all cases. Dr. B.J. Enright, the first University Librarian at The City University, explained why the ex-CATs were more receptive to the idea of information services: "Their very smallness and absence', of a developed (and often inflexible) academic library tradition were" possibly their greatest assets. They were unfettered by restrictions, , . vested interests and 'sacred cows' and able to draw from both industrial and public library experience in attempting to exploit the literature and meet the real and pressing needs of their customers." (19) Harrison Bryan, who conducted two surveys of British university libraries, one in 1951 and one in 1915, also noted, on his second tour, that the ex-CATs led the field, and Hall's 1913 survey similarly indicated that the technological unive.rsities .. "' were ahead of most others and were certainly ahead of the civic universities in the provision of information services.(20)

Hall showed that, although most universities provided accessions lists and information on newly published books, significantly more of the technological universities provided manual CA services than did the civic universities (16.9% and 54.2% respectively). A similar bias could be seen when Hall examined the computer-based information services, 92.3% of -10-

the technological universities were involved in some way with these, as opposed to 60% of the new universiti~s and 66.6% of the civic universities. Nevertheless, despite an understandable bias towards the ex-CATs, by the mid 1970's most universi~ies seemed receptive to the idea of information services. The position was such that Hall felt c.onfident enough to make the following statements.

" •••• the principle of information provision was widely accepted in all types of library except those of the London colleges •••• Certainly the situation as revealed in this survey represents a radical departure from the state of affairs in the early 'sixties when few, if any, information services were provided by British university libraries and is evidence of a dramatic reinterpretation of the philosophy of service to readers by many university libraries." (21) Certain qualifications must be made to this picture, however, as both the subject areas covered by anyone information service, and the.number of people served by that service, varied greatly. First of all it is fairly widely accepted that the sciences and social sciences are more likely to be in need of information services than are the humanities, indeed Ashworth's original article was aimed at providing a service purely for scientists. This division is largely due to the different working needs of humanities SCholars; less vitally important material is produced regularly, and there is less of a need to locate this material quickly, nor is there anywhere near as much literature to search through. As a result humanities research is carried out at a leisurely -11-

pace which allows the researcher to keep abreast of the developments in his field by himself. As Line pointed out in 1969, browsing is a very common means of obtaining information (22) . . in the humanities. In 1916 the SCONUL Information Services Group surveyed serVices provided for the humanities in universities and polytechnics and discovered that'only 36.8%· of the institutions covered provided any formal CA, excluding accessions lists, for academics in this field.(23),Hall's survey expressed the difference in provision most emphatically, 48.3% of institutions provided for the CA needs of soientists, 26.1% served sooial scientists and only 10% offered any form of servioe for arts users.(24)

The aotual numbers of people who are served by an information seotion are always small in oomparison to the numbers that regularly use the library, and the limitations of time mean that only a few will ever benefit. It is thus often a matter of polioy as to whether teaohing staff alone, or teaohing and researoh staff are allowed the use of a library's information seotion. Undergraduates are hardly ever considered as possible olients, as their work would rarely· require up-to-

the-minute,. information, and the literature searoh is in their oase one of the best ways of learning about their subjeot. No general consensus emerged, however, as to whether CA services

should be provided purely for teaohing staff or whether researoh students should be inoluded as well, and praotioe varied acoording to the universities concerned. The aotual numbers of staff and students who benefitted from the servioes mentioned above was, therefore, very small in oomparison to -12-

the size of the institutions themselves. Bearing this in mind, however, we can still say that a substantial number of people were experiencing, nearly all of them for the first time, the effects of a rapid expansion in information provision. The mid 1970's then, can be considered something of a high. point in the history of academic information services. We must remember, though, that the numbers of libraries involved in information provision at that time were falsely inflated to some extent by the support of OSTI grants. We must also bear in mind that some of these information projects were of limited duration, and their continuation after OSTI support had been withdrawn depended to. some extent on whether they would be able to show a "beneficial effect". This, it was gradually discovered, was virtually impossible to do. Martyn, in his discussion of the OSTI Information Officer Project, said that despite many attempts to do so, no way could be found to evaluate the effect of the information officers on their environment. As a result all of Martyn's conclusions were "s~bjective, impressionistic and unscientific,,~25) Other services which encountered the same problem could only draw weak or unsatisfactory conclusions, as was the case with the BA Preview~ project: "The' results obtained in the present project do not allow meaningful predictions as to the proportion of research biologists who would be willing and able to purchase a cost­ recovery servic'e' during the next five years." (26) From 1975 onwards the development of information services was much slower than it had been in the previous decade, and -13-

at the same time the first dissenting voices could be heard, as their value began to be questioned. Gerry M. Smith, who was at the time working as an information officer at The City University, was the first to call for a reassessment of the services offered by some British academic libraries, on the grounds that they were both inefficient and ineffective. Just two years after Evans and Line had concluded that the manual

CA se~vice provided at Bath University cost about the same as a profile with a mechanised retrieval service in sCience,(27) Smith. maintained that "manual SDI se.rvices are an expensive luxury in an academic environment".(28) Smith also argued against the provision of retrospective searches on demand, on the premise that they would cost too much in staff time, would be .of a poor quality due to the librarian's lack of subject knowledge, would be an extremely boring task for' the librarian to carrY out, and would perpetuate the ignorance of the client who would not be motivated to learn and use the documentation sys'tem available to him. Smith was basically attacking what he saw as a dangerous trend of providing information services regardless of the cost or of the clients' needs but Simply because it was seen as "the thing to do". He believed that such services "seem designed to enhance the status of their providers rather than cater for the real needs of users." (29) Although he still accepted that CA services were possibly the most important service a library could offer an academic researcher, Smith was very sceptical about the claims made for manual SDI, suggesting that a less time-consuming, and -14-

less expensive service might be provided through the circulation of photocopies of journal contents pages~ Smith's doubts about the value of carrying out manual literature searches on demand are given some validity when we look at some of the attempts to provide this kind of service which have been described in the literature. E+izabeth Corney's description of the work of the Information/Researcn Se~tion at The City University mentions that, as the demand for bibliographies and "ad hoc" information became too great to cope with, there was a shift in emphasis from actual literature searching to instruction.(30) Even the manual CA service run by Aston University, and strongly defended by Ida Vincent and John Seals, could only claim that 39% of the references it presented to its clients were subsequently requested by them; either an indication of the inaccuracy of the service (which seems unlikely) or the apathy of the staff and students being served. (31) In its defence, Vincent and Se.als claimed that every method of CA was costly, but some more than others, and it was important that the recipients of a service were very carefully selected, and that a check was made (as far as possible) to ensure that the benefits justify the expense. In certain circumstances manual CA could have its· advantages, especially over computerised SDI run externally. This was demonstrated by Tbm Whitehall in his 1913 survey of special lillTaries, where external SDI services did not always provide an adequate coverage of a subject field. A typical comment

from the survey was "Our range of interests is so wide that -15-

to use a commercial service would be much more expensive than to do our own current awareness." (32) Nevertheless, university libraries gradually began to look for alternatives to manual CA services, as the increasing pressure of ,successive financial squeezes and staff cuts made it necessary to "justify" every item in the library's budget. Usually this meant a move in one of three directions (or a combination of these): a) the provision of external computer- ised services, b) .the provision of more retrospective searches, c) the instruction of users in the techniques of literature searching. Many librarians began to look upon the latter alternative as a good way of cutting down staff time spent on ,information work, and thus saving money. In many cases the old ideas expressed by Mackenna came to the fore again, as once again librarians could be heard to say that they did not want to "spoon-feed" their users. In one conversation I have had with a university information officer the role of these "reationary librarians" was considered as a very strong factor in the decline of information services over the last six or seven years. The gradual decline in manual CA can be' seen when we look at the results of a survey carried out by Jennifer Rowley in 1979. Rowley was attempting to compare' the use of locally produced CA services in different types of library, and received forty-seven useful replies from university libraries. Of these only 19% mentioned operating a manual SDI service, while a few others ran a less formal system, compared with the 50% who ran some form of manual CA in 1973.(33) Rowley's comments were, understandably, much r------16-

less enthusiastic than those made by Hall· "University libraries do not operate as ambitious a programme of current awareness services as the size of their current periodicals a~uisitions might warrant. There was a heavy dependence on accessions lists, and most of these were not products of an information team, but emanated from the technical services group." (J4) In a small-soale survey of the university libraries in south east England, carried out by Jill Lam·bert in 1980, there was no interest shown in manual SDI services by any of the seven libraries she questioned, apart from the London University Institute of Education. A service had been provided by The City University, but in 1976 a decision was made 'that manual SDI was not the most effective way of using the information staff.(JS)

The decline of manual CA services was not offset by the growth in the use of computerised services. Although Neal noted in 1978 that " •••• increas ingly, literature searches are being carried out, not in the library, but with the aid of a computer service" (J6) the problem of funding still existed, and if the system was not used carefully it could prove to be just as costly as the manual service it was supposed to replace. In addition to this, the use of computerised methods for information retrieval met some opposition from librarians who were afraid of using the new technology, as A. Vickery put it

" •••• a new and unfamiliar technology is involved- data communication with computer centres located on the other side of the globe. Further, the library -17-

entering this field has'to cope with a whole new world of data base prod­ ucers •••• To many librarians, this aggressively technological and commercial world is alarming, and probably not to be trusted." (J7) As a result of all these problems, the blossoming of information services which Hall hoped for in 1973 did not come about. By 1980 Lambert was tentatively concluding that the growth of these services was stunted partly because of expenditure cuts which affected staffing levels, and partly because of the realisation of the difficulties involved in providing such services effectively. In 1982, the year of information technology, the Library Association carried out a small survey, which received responses from twenty university libraries, to try to measure their contribution to I'r82.(38) The low response rate to their survey does not necessarily indicate that the universities were uninterested in computerised library services. Indeed some libraries were providing online information services, Dundee, Edinburgh and Aberystwyth being cited ~s examples. In a letter to the Library Association

Record referring to the survey, the Science Libr~r1an at Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic seemed to think they were not untypical in their fairly wide use of micros, which included the. production of a monthly CA bulletin for National Health Service personnel.(39)

The current picture of information provision in university libraries is thus ,quite confusing. Some librarians believe that the way forward lies in the development and improvement -18-

of the computerised services, some, like Jill Lambert, believe that a limited manual service may survive because of its effectiveness in relation to the effort involved. (40') Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between the two. Certainly the manual and oomputer searoh have their good and bad points, as Maurioe Line pointed out "Future- systems will not be oomputerised or manual, external or internal, they Will be hybrid systeiS, and one of our tasks will be to find the right mix for eaoh institution, subjeot and group of users." (41) It is hoped that this new survey may throw some light on the situation, and allow some useful oomparisons to be made between the situation as it is now, and as it was ten years ago. -19-

2. METHODOLOGY:

2.1 INTRODUCTION The quality of the results achieved by a survey of this kind depends to a large extent ori the amount of care and attention taken in the early stages. Once a mail questionnaire has been posted, there is little that the researcher can do except to sit ba.ck and await.the replies. He must, therefore, attempt to produce the highest quality of reply possible by determining the problems his respondent might encounter. This survey is a long way from perfect, and its defects stem in part from the very short period of time in which it had to . be completed. The exact topic of this dissertation was not decided upon until late in May 1983, and the submission date was the 30th. September 1983, allowing only just over four , l months for the planning and execution of a very large survey, and the collection and presentation of its results. This lack of time meant that some of the preliminary pilot work had to be omitted. The initial intention was to carry out a small survey of five or six libraries based on a formal interview. This idea was dropped in favour of a mail questionnaire. There are obvious disadvantages in conducting a mail questionnaire, the largest of which is undoubtedly the low response rate they produce.(42) On the other hand, once it had been decided that a large-scale survey was needed, it was obvious that the cost of carrying out so many formal interviews would be too great, and for a small loss in flexibility and response rate, the -20-

mail questionnaire could do the job very cheaply.

2.2 SCOPE OF THE SURVEY

After several discu~ions with Mr. Whitehall, it was decided that the topic for research should be the literature searching services provided by university libraries. Universities were chosen because a study of polytechnics had already been made for the same supervisor by another student,(43) and because the last 'large-scale survey of universities was by then ten years old. The term "literature searching" was preferred to

information services because certain se~ices (see below' were omitted from this survey in order to keep the questionnaire down to a manageable size. Similarly the survey could not simply be called a review of current awareness services, because of, the inclusion of questions on retrospective searching. The final draft of the questionnaire sought information which fell into 'five sections. The first section asked for background information on the size of the university and its library. The second section sought details of the staff who provide information services, and their location in the library. The third section concerned manual CA and retrospective searching, the fourth covered computerised CA and retrospective searching, and the final section asked for details of user reactions and any problems encountered in the provision of services. Although reference and user instruction services, along with library information publications, are usually considered to be part of the work of information staff, they were not included here in order to keep an already large questionnaire

from becoming any bigger. -21-

2.3 PILOT INTERVIEWS

During the last two weeks of Ma~ I planned to have a general discussion with at least two librarians on the topic of academic information services. The aim of these interviews was to find out what those librarians who ran such services 50 , considered to be most important. In this wa~ I hoped to ensure

that all the ke~ issues were covered. The small amount of time I had in which to do this, however, caused problems. It was

initiall~ intended that interviews would ge carried out with

a member of the Information Office at Loughborough Universit~ ICv Libra~, and with somebod~ from Aston Universit~ Librar~.

Unfortunatel~ Mr. John Fields, the person I was hoping to

talk to at Aston, was awa~ on leav~ at the time, and I had to

car~ out an impromptu interview with"Mr. Ralph Adam, the '97 information officer at The Cit~ Universit~. Both Mr. Adam and

Mr. Ebb Rhodes of Loughborough Universit~ Librar~ were ver~ " helpful, and several points were raised during those interviews

which were subsequentl~ used in the questionnaire. 2.4 QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN Once the subject matter of the questionnaire had been decided, the most important point was to ensure that the questions in it ~~;e as unambiguous as possible. Certain problem areas might have been spotted if it had been possible to send out test questionnaires, but once again the lack of

time prevented this. I was helped considerabl~, however, b~

m~ supervisor, who made numerous suggestions and made me

think ver~ carefull~ before the final draft was written.

Most of the questions were factual, that is the~ asked for -22-

data rather than for motives or attitudes, and they were kept as short as possible. Wherever it was necessary prompts were given, and when the questions were of the multiple choice type, there was always an opportunity to state alternatives not covered by the question. The last section did allow more flexibility of response, leaving a.small space for the respondent to write about the problems encountered in providing

information services. , The questionnaire was much longer than would have been preferred, running to seven sides of A4. There is no optimum length for a questionnaire, but obviously the longer it is the less likely it is that people will fill it in. Unfortunately there was no way the questionnaire could be cut down, without reducing the amount of essential information it could gather. Several methods were employed in order to increase the response rate. A stamped, addressed envelope was included with every questionnaire along with a covering letter which apologised both for the length of the questionnaire, and its bad timing (the first batch were posted on 9th. June). Both the questionnaire and, the covering letter are reproduced in Appendices I (a) and I (b). A further inducement was offered in the form of a summary of the ,survey's results, and over 70% of the respondents, said that they would be interested in this. Finally a second copy of the questionnaire was sent out after one and a half months as a reminder to those who had not yet replied, and the letter that accompanied this is reproduced in Appendix,I (c). ------23-

3. DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

3.1. SURVE~RESPONSE AND PRESENTATION OF RESULTS The questionnaire was mailed to 71 university and college libraries listed in 'Libraries in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland 1981' published by the Library Association. The addresses used were taken from the two sections which dealt witb the university libraries in the United Kingdom and the libraries of the colleges and institutes of the University of London. Included in the survey were all the independent

universities in Great ~ritain, the non-medical colleges of the University of London, the constituent colleges of the University­ of Wales, the Cranfield Institute of Technology, Oxford Department of Educational Studies, Cambridge Institute of Education, the Royal College of Art and the privately financed

~niversity of BUckingham. At first the colleges of the University of London were omitted in order to keep down the cost of the survey. This decision was later changed, and consequently two sets of questionnaires were mailed, 57 were posted on 10th. June, whilst 14 more were sent to the London colleges on 27th. Ju17. Useful replies were received from 49 ins.titutions, a response rate of 69% (see Appendix II). The spread of these replies ove-r time can be seen in Appendix III, which also clearly shows the beneficial effect of sending out a reminder. Cambridge University Library was the only institution to reply that they could not afford the staff time to fill in the questionnaire. The Welsh Plant nreeding Station- returned their -24-

questionnaire unanswered, stating that although the University of Wales was their governing body, they were a grant-aided institute of the Agricultural Research Council,.and that their library was basically a small 'special library'. No communication was received from any of the other non-respondents in the survey. The data received from the Universities of Buckingham and Oxford are not used in this dissertation, as both libraries are unique and atypical. I would,like to thank both John Pemberton, the Librarian at Buckingham University, and Charles - Mould-, the Secretary of the Bodleian Library for providing the information. The reply from the University of London Library has been included in this study, although its structure and function are unique. The libraries which did respond can be split up into four catagories: (a) the civic universities, including most of the Scottish universities and the colleges of the University of Wales, (b) the new universities (those established after 1960) (c) the technological universities (those which were mostly former colleges of advanced technology), and (d) the colleges of the University of London. This grouping is exactly the same as that used by Hall in the analysis of the results from the 1973 survey(44). A breakdown of this kind should be useful in

attempting to assess whether the traditional bi~s in information services towards the technological universities still exists. Cranfield Institute of Technology was included with the technological universities, as were UMIST and'UWIST. The Royal College of Art, the Oxford Department of Educational Studies and the Cambridge Institute of Education libraries were all -25-

placed with the London colleges, as their size and function resembled these libraries the closest. The University of London Library is inciuded amongst the replies from its constituent colleges, but because of its unusual position at the head of a federal network, and because it is not a campus library (and therefore has no teaching staff for which it can supply an information service), it is only included in the results for this group where relevant. The response rates for the different groups were as follows: for the civic universities, 20 were returned out of 29 (68.9%), 8 out of the 10 new universities replied (80%), 9 out of 13 of the technological universities (69.2%) and 11 out of 1'8 were returned by the London colleges (61.1%). This last response rate may be lower than it should be because of the delay in posting, and because no reminders were sent to the London colleges. All the replies received have provided some useful information although obviously some were more comprehensive than others. Only one library seems to have provided inaccurate data, that of Aberdeen University; the verifiable information given in the first section of Aberdeen's questionnaire was so inaccurate that it brings into doubt the quality of any of the _information given thereafter. 3.2 STAFFING THE INFORMATION SERVICES The first two sections of the questionnaire were concerned with the size of the institution and its library, and the composition and duties of the library staff (see Appendix I(a)). These questions were asked for two reasons, firstly because -26-

they concerned easily available information which would lead the respondent gently into the questionnaire, and secondly because problems with a very busy or under-staffed library will have an effect on the amount of time available for the provision of information services.

Table 1 splits the libraries into the four separate groups, and then ranks them in order of size within each group. The average number of volumes and periodical titles held by the libraries in each group is shown in the final column. The University of London Library, although included in the London colleges group, is not included in the calculations for that group's averages, due to its unique position and unrepresentative size. This table shows, despite the rather wide variations, , that in general the civic universities posess a total number of volumes almost twice that of the new universities, who in turn have an average stock nearly double that of the technological universities, with the London colleges not surprisingly possessing the smallest average stock. These differences in size of resources are roughly what was expected, with those universities who have had the longest time in which to develop their libraries possessing the largest stocks. The new universities have maintained a superiority in library resources over the technological universities, showing that very little has changed since their inception in the 1960's. These figures are important to this study because it might be expected that those libraries with on17 a small stock would have a greater need to develop an information service in order -27-

to help their users get the most out of it. This was exactly the attitude of those librarians involved in the early attempts to provide a service at The City University(45). The order in which the libraries are arranged here will be used throughout the rest of the Tables. Table 2 shows the number of library and academic staff at each institution, ~long with the library staff· to academic staff ratio. The numbers given for library staff listed in column two cover only those who were entered in the questionnaire as 'chartered or qualified', this includes, in some cases, library assistants who have ALA's or MI/lnf.Sc.'s, while in other cases the respondents have given the numbers of staff who are on academic-related scales. All the figures given are for full- time staff, or the full-time equivalent. Non-professional library staff are excluded because in most cases they would not be the ones expected to carry out information work. Student numbers are not considered here, as it has already been established (see Chapter 1, page 11) that it is only possible to provide an effective information service for staff and research personnel in an academic institution. The lowest library to academic staff ratio comes from the new universities group, with an average ratio of 1:20, but the' other three groups are extremely similar. The civic universities have an average of 1:26, the technological universities an average of 1 :25, and the London colleges an average of 1 :26. Although the new universities do generally seem to enjoy a better library staff to academic staff ratio, none of the other groups display any uniformity, and no pattern emerges within -28-

~hem. The ratios are espeoially inoonsistent in the oivio and,

London oolleges groups, ranging fr~m 1:1) up to 1:50 in the former group and from 1:6 up to 1:62 in the latter. Obviously these figUres are muoh too erratio to allow any proper oonolusions to be drawn from them. Among the new universities only Lanoaster varies very muoh from the group average, but among the other three groups there seems to be no correlation either by the size of the library or by its type. Further details· on the library staff, and in particular the duties of the staff involved with information work, were given

- .j.n Section El of the questionnaire. Part of the information given . in this section is reproduoed in 'l1'able ), where the type of sta:f1" involved in the p:r;ovision of information services is indicated by an asterisk in the relevant column. As can be seen from the table, many libraries draw their information staff from more than one source,and in some cases, as one respondent put it, the information services are provided by "whoever is on duty". In all 12 libraries (25%) indicated that they had staff who spent a significant amount of their time engaged in information work. 11 of these had members of staff specifically designated

to information and referenoe duties, whilst the twelfth had ~

team o~ 14 subject specialists who had information proviSion as a major' element in their work. 9 of these libraries actually possessed an information department, these were: Cardiff, Dundee, Edinburgh, Leicester, Loughborough, St Andrews, Sheffield Strathclyde and Sussex. The terminology varied between libraries , Sussex University Library, for example, called its information

department a 'Readers' Advisory Service', and the st~f who -29-

worked in it were 'Readers' Advisers'. In another case the term Assistant Librarian (Information Services) was used in preference to information officer. In the case of Edinburgh University Library the situation was somewhat,confused, as it had a largp number of dependent site libraries (21 of them), and information departments were located in some, but not all, of them. The University of Strathclyde ran a departmental Business Information Centre in addition to its Reference and Information Division, which had only been in existance for six months. In the 11 libraries that claimed to have staff primarily concerned with information work, 4 had a single information officer, while 7 libraries had two or more full-time information staff (Loughborough, Leicester and Strathclyde could boast 9, 6 and 4 staff respectively). In those libraries with only one information officer, there was part-time help from other professional starf in 3 out of the 4. The surprising feature of the data given in this section of the survey is the percentage of civic universities that possess full-time information staff, 42%, the highest of the four groups. Only 33% of the technological universities employed specialist information staff, 14% of the new universities, and 0% of' the London colleges. In 1973 only 25% of the civic universities had staff employed in this way, and they were closely followed by the technological and new universities on 23% and 20%, with the London coileges on 7.7%.(46)

When compared with the ~ata gathered by Hall, the figures from this survey show that there has been no decline in the -30-

percentage of libraries employing full-time information staff. Hall's survey found 12 libraries (20%) in,this category, whilst this survey found 11 libraries (23%). Decline has taken place, however, in the number of libraries possessing subject specialists who devote, a significant part of their time to information work. This survey could only find one library (2%) that ran its information staff along these lines, whereas 12 libraries (20%) did so in 1973. When these figures are combined then, and we compare the percentage of libraries with stafr that devote most or a significant part of their time to information work, only 25% do so now, compared with 36.7% in

1973. The remaining 34 institutions (72%) had'staff ,who provided information services as only a small part of their work, which included classification, cataloguing, administration or other professional duties. 22 libraries relied primarily on subject specialists, 1 on reference staff, 2 on technical services staff, and 9 on any professional staff who happen to be on duty. As can be seen from Table 3, most of these libraries relied on more than one source to deal with their information enquiries, for example 14 of the 22 libraries using subject specialists also used other staff. The libraries that used any professional staff in the provision of information services were generally the smallestl all but two had a book stock of 100,000 or less, and all but one had under 10 professional staff. These figures show a noticeable rise in the number of libraries using subject specialists in some level of information work. -31-

In 1913, 21 libraries (35%) possessed subject specialists who were involved to some extent in the provision of these s-erTices, in 1983 the number has risen to 26 libraries (55%). The second question in Section B asked for data on the siting and accommodation of those staff involved in the provision of information services. Of the 46 libraries that answered -this section, 22 (48%) met the information needs or their users in one place, usually the main enquiry desk. The either 24 libraries deal t with information enquiries -in more than one place, usuallY' at the enquiry point and on subject specialist desks situated next to the relevant subject collections. Nearly all the

libraries provided some point of pu~lie access for the answering

of information queries, but 4 libraries (1 civic, 1 new and 2' London colleges) ran their information services solely from offices. 2 other libraries ( 1 civic and 1 new) had a pub-lic enquiry pOint, but housed their subject specialist staff in offices. 3.3 MANUAL LITERATURE SEARCHING SERVICES Section C of the questionnaire was devoted to the manual literature searching services, and constituted a large proportion of the document, in fact nearly half its total length (see­ Appendix I(a». This was unfortunate, as it was expected that most of the respondents would have very little information to supply on manual services, however the length could not be reduced without omitting important questions. Despite the fact that, as expected, many libraries had very little to write in this section, a great deal of interesting and useful data was given. -32-

The first question covered the provision of information on new publications and new accessions, and the results can be seen in Table 4. A few of the respondents mistakenly answered yes to the first part of the question, which asked "Is there-

any general notification o~ new publications?", and suggested that their accessions lists or new book displays did this. This has probablrnot affected the results, because any librarian who connot understand the meaning of the question is unlikely to provide the service the question is asking about. In all 14 libraries (30%) provided some kind of notification of new publications to academic staff. 2 libraries, (Nottingham and Leicester) ran a scheme in conjunction with their University Bookshops, where the Bookshop circulated new titles to members of staff, who could then recommend books for the library. At Brunel University Library it was the task of the Aquisitions Librarian to collect all the publishers' information that the library received, and to send it to the relevant library representatives. In other cases the system was "less formalised, relying in the main on the occasional circulation of publishers' information or"books 'on approval'. The Oxford Department of Educational Studies was unique in providing an informal service which included photocopying review articles on new publications that might be of interest. The recipients of this information were either individual members of staff or library representatives, and the library's subject specialist staff were usually in charge of the service. In 1913 this service was provided by 39 libraries (65%), which included a majority of all groups except the London colleges. (41) -33-

The present situation is that only the technological universities still seem committed, with 55% of that group running this service. Surprisingly the'second largest percentage comes from the London colleges (36%) ahead of the civic universities (21%) and the new universities (12%). A larger response was expected to the question on accessions lists. In 1973 Hall found that accessions lists were by far the most common form- of current awareness service, being provided in 45 of the libraries ·surveyed (75%)(48). In this survey only 26 libraries (55%) said they provided accessions lists, a considerable drop, although it remains the most popular form of current awareness. Accessions lists appeared to be more popular with the civic universities than elsewhere, they were provided in 68% of the responses from this group, and they were least popular in the London colleges, being available in only 36% of them. Only the percentage of new universities providing this service had not declined since

1973, remaining the same at 50%. 21 libraries indicated how their accessions lists were diVided, although most of the answers did not give very clear information; in 11 replies the answer given was Simply "all subjects taught in· the university". 7 respondents divided their accessions lists using the library's classification scheme,1 ·by the ten main Dewey Deoimal divisions, 2 by the main Universal Decimal divisions, 1 by the Libray of Congress main classes, and 3 simply described their lists as arranged by class number. 2 of the big civic universities arranged their lists into broad subject groups; Manchester split theirs into Humanities, -34-

Social Sciences, Science and Medicine, while Leeds divided theirs into Arts & Social Sciences, Science & Engineering, Education ,and Medicine & Dentistry. Hull University Library provided accessions lists for a limited number of subject areas only, and the only subject mentioned was South East Asian Studies. There was evidence from some replies to suggest that the drop in the number of libraries supplying accessions lists was in part due to recent staff cuts. The proTision of accessions lists was one of several services to be cut by' Lancaster University Library in 1982, while Aston University Library had recently discontinued its service in favour of a new ~ooks display. Surrey University Library no longer provide~

~ccessi,ons ,lists, although it did so in 1980, when Ji11 Lambert interViewed the Librarian.(49) MMY of the libraries that did not provide an accessions list did provide some other information on new accessions, either in the form of direct notification or' the arrival of a new book, or in the form of. a recent accessions display. These activities, whilst they do not strictly come under the title of current awareness se.rvices, are still services of relevance to this survey, especially as some libraries ,seem to be relying on these methods to replace th~ir accessions lists. New book displays were popular in the libraries of all four groups. 19 libraries (40%) mentioned offering such a service, 13 of' them being libraries with no accessions lists. The direct notification of individual members of staff or departments of the a=ival of new books was slightly less comm'on, and was -35-

mentioned by 14 (3~~) of the respondents. Half of these libraries notified the appropriate departments of new accessions on a regular basis, 4 libraries sent notification to the member of staff who recommended the book (if he requested such a service), one library sent a direct notification by letter or by telephone when urgent requests were received, one library provided an infrequent notification service when time permitted, and the Royal College of Art Library actually sent cards to any members of staff they thought might be interested in a new accession, whether it was requested bY' them or note,. In some cases new notification cards were made out by the library staff, while in others a photocopy of the order card was sent, in one case the order card was made in three parts so that a copy could be torn off and sent to the department concerned. Table ,. deals with the circulation of photocopies of journal contents pages, journals, current contents, and commerciall~ produced abstracts. This table covers questions C 2-6 in the questionnaire. The questionnaire also asked for information on the circulation of photocopies of abstracts, a service provided by ,. libraries in 1973, but none of the respondents provided such a service, so it has been omitted from the table. It can be seen from a glance at Table ,. that the most common service provided is the circulation of photocopies of journal contents. This service is in fact the second most popular form of manual current awareness, being provided by 19 libraries (40%). The service was provided primarily for staff working in the sciences'and social sciences, with two notable exceptions. Hull University Library provided this service for staff teaching -36-

sooial and eoonomio history, while Newoastle oovered history, arohaeology, english language and english literature. Some libraries limited their servioes to just one subjeot area, Glasgow serving its maths department, and Surrey its psyohology department. Other libraries oovered a large number of' subjeots Newoastle managed to provide a servioe for 13 departments and Aston oovered 9. Two libraries (Sheffield and Southampton) offered to provide the, service to any department or individuals on payment of a oharge, Sheffield charged 6p a copy. Eight libraries had a system of disseminating the photooopies within a department via a particular individual, in most cases the departmental representative, but in one case it was the departmental secretary, and in another the head of department. The rest of the libraries supplied individual members of the academio starf, except for the University of London Library, which only provided this service for library staff. When we compare the percentage of libraries in each group that provide a conten.ts photooopying servioe, the oivio universi ties oome out on top with 52%. The technological universities come next with 44%, while the London oolleges with 21% just beat the new universities on '25%. When oompared with 1913's figures the oivic and London colleges, groups have improved from percentages of 33.3% and 15.4% respeotively, while the new universities have been out by half and the technological universities have slipped from 61.5%. In comparison with photooopies, the circulation of journals, current contents and abstracts was much less oommon, but the oirculation of journals was more frequent than the oirculation -37-

or any other material. In terms of serving the institutions' academic staff, though, the figures are misleading. Although 12 libraries (25%) claimed to circulate journals, a large proportion of these (7 libraries) were circulating either totally or mainly to the library staff. Of those libraries that c.irculated to academic staff, the most common procedure was to send the journals to departmental representatives, for them to circulate within the department. All the libraries involved circulated journals in the sciences only, with physics, maths and chemistry being the main subjects covered. This service was fairly evenly distributed among the groups, with the London colleges being the most active, and the new universities the least •. The circulation of current contents was not very common in any of the library groups, only 3 oivic, 1 new, 1 technological and 1 London college library were engaged in this activity. The subject areas covered were engineering, life sciences and

education, while ~i ty c·overed all the social sciences and Stirling covered all the sciences. Aberystwyth only circulated to site libraries, not to academic staff. Abstracts were circulated by only three libraries; Leicester, Durham (the two civic universities most active in manual CA) and Imperial College. Leicester and Durham both circulated Mathematical Reviews to their respective maths departments, but Leicester also circulated Physics Abstracts, Geography Abstracts and Psychology Abstracts. Imperial College circulated 8 titles in CA Selects to "any academic staff who are interested". Table 6 deals with the production of CA bulletins, and the ------~------

-38-

provision of manual SDI and retrospective searches, all fairly time-consuming services. As can be seen from the table, none of these services are particularly common. The new universities do not provide any services of this kind, and most of the services that are provided can be found in the technological universities. CA bulletins were produced by 3 technological, 2 civic and 1 London college. Some were produced on all the subjects taught in the university and were designed for internal use, while others were produced in just one subject and were available externally. Surrey and Imperial College produced bulletins which covered over 10 subjects each, the Imperial bulletin being issued eight times a year. Aston produced a bulletin on Higher Education, and Cardiff produced one on European Studies, both of which could be subscribed to by other libraries. The universities of Loughborough and Leicester,

whilst not actuaily producing a bulletin themselves, contributed~ to bulletins produced elsewhere. Loughborough contributed material to Articles in Civil Engineering (ACE), which was produced by the University of Bradford Library, and Leicester contributed abstracts to the Social Work Information Bulletin, which was produced by the Leicestershire Libraries and Information Service. In answer to .the question on what materials were scanned in the production of CA bulletins, 4 out of the 6 libraries scanned primary material, the other 2 scanning both primary and secondary sources. None of the libraries covered any subjects in the humanities. The provision of manual SDI was limited to four libraries only, all of them technological. None of these libraries -39-

seemed particularly committed to manual SDI, and two of them, Salford and Aston, seemed to be slowly phasing them out. The SDI provided by Strathclyde was limited to the staff using the Business Information Centre, and no service was provided bT the main library. Despite this reluctance to provide a formal service, 6 libraries who had once provided such a service still kept lists of staff interests, usually in a card file, and would provide the service unofficially, depending on the time available and the subject involved. The provision of manual retrospective searches, like manual SDI, is a very time-consuming business, and this is reflected in the number of libraries actively involved in providing the service. Although 12 libraries (25%) claimed to run manual retrospective searches, the number who actually did so regularly was much lower. Four libraries admitted to doing very little in practice, Aston only ran a manual search when an on-line search was impossible, and consequently ran about 1 per year. Salford ran 2 or 3 searches per year, Strathclyde ran "very few" and Cardiff ran "none in practice", although the service was officially available. Only Sheffield, Loughborough and Bath ran more than a handful of searches (approximately 100, 50 and 25 per year). Most libraries expected academic staff to carry out this kind of search for themselves, and 6 stated that

although they did not carry out searches, they' were willing to give instruction. When all the data given on manual services is collected and compared'with the figures from 1973, some interesting trends can be seen. Table 7 shows those services that can be compared -40-

directly with each other, and it is immediately obvious that the total percentage of libraries providing manual CA has suffered a decline. All categories, except the provision of' photocopies of contents, are lower than their 1913 level.

The percentage of libraries produc~ng iDrormation on new publications has declined by 36%, accessions lists bT 20%, manual SDI by 11% and internal CA bulletins by 4%. The decline of services in the new universities is the most dramatic, this group comes last in the provision of all

services except accessions lists, where it i~ next to last. The technological universities, while not providing as high a level of service as ten years ago, are still the most active in the field of manual CA, with the civic universities a close second. Excluding new accessions lists and information on new publications, 25 libraries (53%) were still providing some form of current awareness service. Although this figure is not much lower than the 34 libraries (56.6%) quoted by Hall, it can hardly be said any more that this is "indicative of an increasing acceptance by university libraries that the provision of current awareness services is part of their responsibility." (50) With regard to manual services the reverse now seems to be true, as some services, such as manual SDI, are gradually' being phased out altogether. This decline may in part be the result of a growth in the . use of computer-based services, as several respondents have indicated that their libraries possess a definite policy of abandoning manual services in favour of computerisation. -41':'

3.4 COMPUTER-BASED LITERATURE SEARCHING SERVICES Section D of the questionnaire dealt with those information

services that were carried out by c~mputer. Under this heading three basic services were provided: (a) current awareness via a

"standard profile", that is one designed by a commercial vendor

to meet the needs of a num~er of separate clients indifferent institutions, (b) current awareness via an SDI profile created by the library itself, with the specific· needs of particular groups 6f researchers in mind, (c) computerised retrospective searches using commercially available databases. Whereas manual CA and retrospective searching will cost a library very little apart from the staff time involved in providing the service, a computer-based service will involve

them in other expenses. Hardware and software have to be ~ought,

running time has to be paid for, and any references retrieved have to be printed, which also costs money. Consequently the first question in this section asked the institutions surveyed to provide information on the funding and control of their computer-based services, and the results are shown in Table 8. The actual cost of staffing, maintenance and purchase of the hardware or software was no-t asked for, and in most cases was not given; what this table is concerned with is the.running costs, that is those incurred by actually· using the services. The most common form of funding was for the library to

provide the money itself. 22 libraries (47%) indic~ted that they provided some or all of the money needed to run their computer­ based servi.ces. 14 institutions (30%) asked for all or some of the costs to be paid by the individuals using the service, and -42-

11 libraries (23%) replied that university departments were charged for part or all of the services offered. One library, that of Holloway College, ran a library-financed service only for as long as the money allocated for computer services lasted, then the individuals were asked to pay. Of those libraries that charged their clients, 5 indicated that only part of the costs were ~harged (usually half) and the rest was met by the library. In nearly all the cases where an individual was charged, the library expected that the users could be reimbused by their respective departments, or could use money from a research grant[The pressure on those libraries that do not .eharge for r) comput~r-based services seems .to begrOWing~One of the libraries that was suffering was that of the Welsh National School o~ Medicine. Here rising demand (over 120% increase in the past five years) has strained the library's financial resources. Some senior and influential academics WhO do not use· the services have suggested that users should pay. According to the Librarian, in the present climate, arguments about the ethics of charging for library services when these services have mostly been funded centrally cut no ice at all. It seems likely that in the future those libraries that are expanding their computer-based services will gradually be pushed towards demanding some level of payment from their clients. Although the money for funding computer-based services may come from different sources, it is obvious from Table 8 that these services are controlled, almost without exception, by library staff. Only 4 institutions (8.5%) indicated that academic departments had any say in the aduilni:"stration-of -43-

computer-based services, and 3 out of the 4 indicated that the departments shared this responsibility with the library. Table 9 shows the computer-based services that were provided by each institution. EasilY' the most common service was thEJ' computerised retrospective search, in ~act this service was provided by every library that had computer-based services availaUle (40 institutions). The approximate number of searches, carr'ied out in a year varied greatly from one institution to the next, ranging from 35 in one of the new universities to 650 in one of the civic universities. Those libraries that,served large numbers of staff could be expected to carry out the most searches, and in general this is what was found. The civic universities, with the most teaching and research staff to cater for, had the highest average number of computerised retrospective searches per year at 211. The technological universities, with a slightly higher average number of staff than the new universities, were providing an average of 152 searches, as against 83 for the new universities. Surprisingly \, the London colleges, with the lowest average number of starf, were providing slightly more searches than the new universities (81 per year). Obviously there were some, institutions that placed more emphasis on this service than ot~ers, and this was reflected in the figures. The Welsh National School of Medicine library, while only serving a small staff of' 192, had a strong commitment to computerised services ,and carried out over 600' searches per year, whilst York University library, serving a -­ 'starf of 305, provided on average only 35 searches per year. Thirty-seven libraries gave some indication as to the subject -44-

areas covered by their computer-based retrospective searches, and of these 15 claimed to cover 'all subjects'. The more detailed replies, however, showed that there was a strong bias towards the sciences and social sciences. Three of the most popular subjects were engineering, biology and medicine, while one library carried out most of its searches in business studies. Only one reply mentioned a subject from the humanities, and that was from the Royal Holloway College. Holloway had actively encouraged the members of its french department to use the service, and had managed to develop an active interest amongst the staff from that department; the growth of interest from other humanities departments, however, was very slow. Computerised SDI was not as common as retrospective searching and was prOVided by 19 libraries (40%). Ten of these relied on profiles created by the library for specific research groups or indiViduals, 4 relied on standard profiles provided by a commercial vendor, and 5 used a combination of both. On average the number of profiles created was low (under 10), with two notable exceptions. The Welsh National School of Medicine had constructed over eighty profiles, while Brunel University had 51. Once again, the majo.rity of these profiles were created fOI!· clients in the sciences. For example, Leicester University library, who gave a very detailed description of their computer­ based services, did not cover any subjects outside the sciences. Three of their standard profiles were in physics and eight were in chemistry, while their own SDI profiles covered physics, chemistry, plant biology and engineering. -45-

The technological universities were the most active in the

~ield of computer-based SDI,67% of this group having services available. The civic universities also had a majority of their group involved with computerised SDI (53%), but the new universities and the London colleges had a much lower level of involvement (25% and 9% respectively). When all this data is compared with that collected in 1973, a marked increase in the use of computerised services can be seen. The present study revealed that 40 institutions (85%) are involved to some extent with computer-based services, compared with 63.3% in 1973.~51)Added to this' two libraries that at present do not provide computer-based services have plans to do so in the near future. Perhaps a more significant fact, however, is the increase in the number of libraries with funds available for their'computer­ based services ; 47% now claim to allocate funds to these services, whereas only 28.3% did so in 1973. This indicates that computer-based services are becoming accepted as a necessary part ?f a library's facilities, and many of the libraries that in 1973 were spending money on building up their abstracting~1 and indexing journals, are now spending a portion of that money on their computerised equivalents~ Once again the technological universities provided the most comprehensive services; all of the universities in the group were involved in the provision of computerised services, and over half ran computer-based CA as well as retrospective searches. Although the new universities group also had a 100% commitment to computer-based services, their exploitation of -46-

them was comparatively limited. The 7 libraries that did not provide any computer-based services were mostly, among the smallest institutions covered by the survey (2 colleges from the University of Wales and 5 libraries from the London colleges group), and their lack of services was prolJably as much the result of limited resources as a definite policy decision. 3.5 CLIENT REACTION AND FEEDBACK Section E attempted to gather some information on what the

clients who were served by these information services actually thought of' them. It was only a small part of the total ques,tionnaire, and the results it gave have certain limitations. The most obvious of these is that any information supplied

would He coloured by the individual supplying it, in this case

the librarian, and this must He kept in mind, especially-when we consider how many of' the replies in this section were based on informal contact. To begin with, 41 institutions (87%) stated that they received some form of feedback from their clients, but only 11 of these (23%) had any formal means of gathering this information. The most favoured method of notification was via a form sent out with the references retrieved from computerised retrospective searches. This form usually asked for comments on the relevancy and usefulness of the information provided. Another'formal method of feedback was ,via library advisory or liason committees, or through periodically arranged special interviews with individual members of staff. The vast majority of libraries simply relied on informal contact, asking clients about their problems or suggestions for improvements, as and when they met in the -47-

course of their duties. To the question on the user's reactions to the services available, most libraries claimed that these were generally favourable. Obviously the replies to this section (as stated earlier) were likely to be a 11 ttle biased. In addition to this, the reaction of anyone client will vary greatly according to the individual concerned, the kind of' search being carried out, and the availability of suitable databases. As a result reactions ranged from real enthusiasm, through total apathy to sheer arrogance. Several librarians,

however, considered that their clients must be quite satisfied because they kept returning for new' searches and updates on old ones. Others said that their users were grateful for' any kind of service because they had no expectations of being provided with current information, and one library reported that their academic staff were, "impressed by the use of computers in the library"! Virtually all these replies referred to computer-based services, partly because these were more readily available, but also because many libraries are still trying to evaluate the usefulness of individual databases. 3.6 'PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN PROVIDING INFORMATION SERVICES Section F of the questionnaire was split into two, and asked 'for separate data on the problems encountered in running manual and computer-based services. It is difficult to distinguish between the two types, as they are really part of one service: a service which aquires information from a variety of sources and by different methods. The'problems, or "practical considerations" as some librarians put it, are -48-

generally either managerial or technical, and these can be found in different proportions in both manual and computer­ based services. The answers received on manual services were almost all concerned with managerial problems. Insufficient· staff time was the main one, as manual searches are so labour­ intensive that neither the individual member of staff, nor the library as a whole, could afford to adopt a policy of providing these services on request. In total 25 libraries (53%) gave this as their main problem with manual services. Three others mentioned a lack of funds leading to a poor' collection of abstracts and indexes, and one added that their staff were generally inexperienced in providing detailed manual searches. The limitations of staff time and the lack of funds to cover costs were also problems which affected the computer-based services, but here there were also a range of more specific technical problems. Lack of properly trained stafr was much more commo~ with computerised services. Due to the constantly changing developments, the proliferation of different command languages, and the lack of sufficient training time, it was often very difficult for staff to become adequately familiar with speoific data~ses. The availability'of these services was often limited by a lack of funds, as those libraries that had to operate a charging system inevitably deterred a number of potential clients from using the services. More problems were encountered because of the dubiOUS relevance of certain databases. This situation was amplified in libraries where, because of the costs involved, the -49-

temptation was to search on an inadequate number of databases. As a result, some computer-based searches were less comprehensive than those carried' out manually. Some libraries mentioned a lack of suitable indexing terms in those databases that did I cover the required subjects. Other libraries encountered I , I

problems due to the unrealistic expectations of their clients, i many of whom were not prepared to take'the time to modify their search terms once their initial attempt had proved unsuccessful. Many libraries were obviously suffering from a massive increase in demand due to the growing popularity of computer- based services, and this was putting a strain on several areas. In particular the staff' providing the service were finding it difficult to fit it in amongst their other duties (although some libraries noted that working on computers provided a welcome change in the work routines of those involved). In addition a strain was put on the Inter-Library Loans section, due to the increased demand for references generated by computer searches. As Bob Rhodes (Information sub librar'ian at Loughborough University) pointed out to me, it is often very difficult to explain these technical difficulties to clients, in fact it sO!Detimes takes a long time before other librarians can appreciate them. As a result the expliotation of computer databases is not as great as it could be if more time were spent on instructing users and librarians alike in their proper use. -$0-

'4. CONCLUSIONS

This has been the first major surveT of academic information services for some time. When compared with the results of the survey carried out by John Hall in 1973, a number of developments can ue seen. There has been a general decline in the provision of practically everT kind of manual literature searching service, and at the same time there has been an increase, not onlT in the numbe'r of libraries involved in computer-based' services, but also in the number of libraries with fundS available for these services. The decline of one is linked to the rise of the other, and libraries appear to favour computer-based services especially in the area of' retrospective searching. The bias in information provision towards the, technological universities is not as pronounced as it used to lie, with many civic universities now providing services that match, and in some cases surpass, those available elsewher81. The' London colleges are gradually improving their services, but are hampered by limited staff time and poor funds. The new universities, who were the second most active group in 1973, now provide a very poor range of information services. There is no apparent reason for this, and it might be interesting

for a further, more detailed, study to be made of this ,group. As was the case in 1973, the soiences and social sciences are adequately covered, liut the provision of information for the humanities is very low. This is partly due to a,lack or relevant databases, but we must be wary of assuming that no demand exists in this area, because it has been shown that when humanities departments are encouraged, the latent demand often emerges (see p~ge 44).

In the surveys ca=ied out by C.M. Hall and Jill Lambert there still appeared to be a role for the less time-consuming manual services; the present survey suggests that this will be less likely in the future. Lambert also indicated a retraction in the use of computerised services which this studT does not substantiate. There is one area that all three surveys agree on- that the limiting factors in the provision o~ information services ar~ the attitude of the libTarian and the ava.ilabili ty of' adequate funding. It seems that more librarians now see the answer to their problems lies in charging for computer-based services. Not only is this setting a dangerous precedent, but it is also severelT limiting the exploitation of these services. If, as seems likely, the future role of academic libraries will ~ one of attempting to provide as comprehensive a service as possible with limited resources, then current ~wareness and retrospectiTe searching services have a vital and positive part. to play. It is to be hoped that the pressure of dWindling financial resources, whi~h threatens to turn academic libraries into mere book warehouses, ·will be countered by an increase in thjj.~.commi tment to the proil'l:s1on or.1nf:01'llla:~ion services •

. - . -52-

TABLE 1 LIBRARIES RANKED BY SIZE OF STOCK PERIOD. AVERAGE NO. AVERAGE NO. LIBRARY' TOTAL VOLS. TITLES OF VOLS. OF PERIOD. TITLES GROUP ONE: CIVIC. Manchester 3,000,000 -8,000 Edinburgh 1,800,000 11,000 Leeds 1,150,000 8,100 Glasgow 1,432,848 - 1,500 - Aberdeen 1,000,000. 8,000 Nottingham 850,000 5,000 Leicester 119,699 5,000 Hull 150,000 5,000 Sheffield 150,000 5,000 St Andrews 150,000 4,000 811 1222 5a330 .Southampton 681,000 6,419 Durham 600,000 3,800 Newcastte 500,000 4,915 Aberystwyth 450,000 3,000 Cardiff 450,000 2,900 Dundee 430,000 4,150 Hll.ngor 400,000 1,000 Lampeter 120,000 1,019 Welsh Sc Med 55,000 800

GROUP TWO: NEW. Lancaster 630,000 2,800 Sussex 534,300 3,665 East Anglia 500,000 2.500 Keele 500,000 2,213 28 2,142 Kent 400,000 3,900 4221 1 Stirling 350,000 2,200 "fork 320,000 2,000 Ulster 200,000 2,600 -53-

TABLE 1 CONTINUED LIBRARIES RANKED 'BY SIZE OF STOCK PERIOD. AVERAGE NO. AVERAGE NO. LIBRARY!' TOTAL VOLS. TITLES OF VOLS. OF PERIOD. TITLES GROUP THREE: TECHNOLOGICAL. SurreY" 330,000 2,500 Strathclyde 309,500 3,127 Aston 306,000 2,491 Loughborough 284,237 4,534 BruneI 250,000 2,000 2~21621 21476 Salf'ord 238,000 1,932 City 200,000 1,600 Bath 175,000 2,60} Heriot-Watt 100,000 1,500

GROUP FOUR: LONDON COLLEGES. London 1,250,000 5,400 University C. 900,000 7,000 Holloway C. 200,000 1,100 Kedford C. 178,000 727 Imperial C. 177 ,000 1,176 Chelsea C. 135,000 800 1221 600 11146 Wye C. 60,000 600 Royal C. Art 40,000 180 Cam. Ins. Ed. 30,000 150 Ox. Dept. Ed. 30,000 150 Richmond C• 26,000 120

.' -54-

TABLE 2 RATIO OF LIBRARY TO ACADEMIC STAFF

NUMBER OF NUMBER OF RATIO OF LIBI. LIBRARY" ACADEMIC STAFF LIBRARY STAFF TO ACAD. ST'AFF GROUP ONE: CIVIC.

Manches ter . 1',320 31 1:36 Edinburgh 1,104 51.5 1:21 Leeds 1,213 41 1 :30 Glasgow 1,126 41 1:24 Aberdeen 600 40 1: 15- Nottingham 100 36 1:19 Leicester 451 19 1:24 Hull 950 21 1:45 Sheffield 915 47 1:19 St Andrews 300 18 1:11 Southampton 100 33.5 1:21 Durham 450 25 1: 18 Newcastle 1,300 26 1 :50 Aberystwyth 400 13 1 :31 Cardiff 530 26 1:20 Dundee 940 19 1:49 Hangor 300 16 1:19 Lampeter 61 5 1:13 Welsh Sc Med 192 9 1:21

GROUP TWO: NEW.

Lancaster 600 20 1:30 ·Sussex . 611 31 1:18 East Anglia 346 no figure given -- Keele 343 16 1:21 Kent 350 19 1:18 Stirling 250 15 1:11 'l!ork 305 14 1:22 Ulster 208·· 14 1: 15 -55-

TABLE 2 CONTINUED RATIO OF LIBRARY TO ACADEMIC STAFF NUMBER OF NUMBER OF RAT;[O OF LIB. LIBRARY· ACADEMIC STAFF LIBRARY STAFF TO ACAD. STAFF GROU,P THREE: TECHNOLOGICAL.

Surrey 379 14 1:27 Strathclyde 800 28.5 1:28 Aston 350 17 1:21 Loughborough 520 25 1:21 Brunel 259 11 1:23 Sal£ord 400 14 1:29 City 349 19 1:18 Bath 380 19 1:20 Iferiot-Watt ,300 8 1:37

GROUP FOUR: LONDON COLLEGES;

University C. 1,500 24 1:62 Holloway C. 180 13 1:14 Bedford C. 200 6 1 :33 Imperial C. 800 18 1:44 Chelsea C. 185 15 1:12 Wye C. 65 3 1:22 Royal C. Art 100 7 1:14 Cam. Ins. Ed. 13 2 1:6 Ox. Dept. Ed. no figure given 1 Richmond C. 50 3 1:17 -56-

TABLE 3 THE STAFF WHO PROVIDE INFORMATION SERVICES SPECIALIST SUBJECT REFERENCE TECHNICAL !r& INFORMATION SPECIALISTS STAFF SERVICES COUNTER LIBRARY STAFF STAFF STAFF GROUP ONE: CIVIC. Manchester * * Edinburgh * * Leeds * * Glasgow * * Aberdeen * * Nottingham * Leicester * Hull * * Sheffleld * st Andrews * *' Southampton * * * Durham *' * Newcastle * * * Aberye twyth * * * Cardiff * * Dundee * * Bangor * Lampeter * Welsh Sc Med * GROUP TWO: NEW. Lancaster * Sussex * East Anglia no information given )Ceele * Kent * * Stirling * York * Ulster * -57-

TABLE 3 CONTINUED THE STAFF WHO PROVIDE INFORMATION SERVICES SPECIALIST' SUBJECT REFERENCE TECHNICAL ALL INFORMATION SPECIALISTS STAFF SERVICES COUNTER LIBRARYr S'lfAFF STAFF STAFF GROUP THREE: TECHNOLOGICAL. Surrey * Strathclyde * * * Aston * Loughborough * Brunel '* * Salford * * City * Bath * Heriot-Watt * GROUP FOUR: LONDON COLLEGES. London * * University C. * Holloway C. * * Bedford C'. * * Iinperial C. * * Chelsea C. * Wye &. * Royal C. Art * Cam. Ins. Ed. * Ox. Dept. Ed. * Richmond C. * -58-

TABLE 4 INFORMATION ON NEW PUBLICATIONS AND NEW ACCESSIONS INFORMATION DIRECT ON NEW ACCESSIONS NEW BOOK NOTIFICATION LIBRAR'!" PUBLICATIONS LISTS DISPLAYS OF NEW BOOKS GROUP ONE: CIVIC. Manchester * Edinburgh * Leeds * Glasgow * Aberdeen * Nottingham * * Leicester * * Hull * * Sheffield * St Andrews * * Southampton * * Durham * Newcastle * * Aberystwyth * * * Cardiff * * Dundee * * Bangor * Lampeter Welsh Sc Med· * GROUP TWO: NEW. Lancaster * * Sussex * East Anglia * * Keele * Kent * Stirling * * * York * * Ulster * *

• -59-

TABLE 4 CONTINUED INFORMATION ON NEW PUBLICATIONS AND NEW ACCESSIONS INFORMATION DIRECT' ON NEW ACCESSIONS NEW BOOK NOTIFICATION LIBRARY PUBLICATIONS LISTS DISPLAYS OF NEW BOOKS GROUP THREE: TECHNOLOGICAL. Surrey * Stratholyde * Aston * * Loughborough * BruneI * * Salford * * City 1Il!.th " * * * Heriot-Watt * * * GROUP FOUR: LONDON COLLEGES. London University C. * Holloway C. * * Bedford C. * Imperial C. * * Chelsea C. * Wye C. * * Royal C. Art * Cam. Ins. Ed. * * * Ox. Dept. Ed. * * Riohmond C. * -60-

TABLE 5 THE CIRCULATION OF PHOTOCOPIES, JOURNALS, CURRENT CONTENTS AND ABSTRACTS CIRCULATION OF CIRCULATION CIRCULATION OF PHOTOCOPIES OF CIRCULATION OF CURRENT' COMMERCIAL LIBRARY JOURNAL CONTENTS OF JOURNALS CONTENTS ABSTRACTS GROUP ONE: CIVIC. Manchester Edinburgh * Leeds Glasgow * Aberdeen Nottingham * Leicester * * * Hull * Sheffield * St Andrews Southampton * . Durham * * * * Newcastle * * Aberystwyth * * * Cardiff * Dundee * Bangor Lampeter Welsh Sc Med

GROUP TWO: NEW. Lancaster Sussex East Anglia * Keele Kent * Stirling * York * Ulster -61-

TABLE 5 CONTINUED THE CIRCULATION OF PHOTOCOPIES, JOURNALS, CURRENT CONTENTS AND ABSTRACTS CIRCULATION OF CIRCULATION CIRCULATION OF PHOTOCOPIES OF CIRCULATION OF CURRENT COMMERCIAL LIBRARY JOURNAL CONTENTS OF JOURNALS CONTENTS ABSTRACTS GROUP THREE: TECHNOLOGICAL. Surrey * Strathclyde Aaton * Loughborough lfrunel * Salford City * * Bath Heriot-Watt * * GROUP FOUR: LONDON COLLEGES. London * Univera i ty C. Holloway C. Bedford C. * Imperial C. * * Chelsea C. * Wye C. Royal C. Art * Cam. Ins. Ed. * Ox. Dept. Ed. Richmond C. * -62- .. TABLE 6

THE PROVISION OF CA BULLETINS, SDI AN]) RETROSPECTIVE SEARCHES INTERNALLY PRODUCED RETROSPECTIVE LIBRARY CA BULLETINS MANUAL SDI SEARCHES GROUP ONE: CIVIC, Manohester Edinburgh Leeds Glasgow Aberdeen Nottingham Leioester * * Hull I Sheffield * St Andrews Southampton Durham Newoaliltle Aberystwyth Cardiff * * Dundee Bangor Lampeter Welsh So Med

GROUP TWO: NEW, Lanoaster Sussex East Anglia Keele Kent Stirling York Ulster -63-

TABLE 6 CONTINUED THE PROVISION OF CA BULLETINS. SDI AND RETROSPECTIVE SEARCRES INTERNALLY.' PRODUCED RETROSPECTIVE LIBRARY CA BULLETINS MANUAL SDI SEARCHES GROUP THREE: TECHNOLOGICAL. Surrey * * Strathclyde * * Aston * * * Loughborough * * BruneI Salford * * City * Bath * Heriot-Watt

GROUP FOUR: LONDON COLLEGES. London University C. Holloway C. * Bedford C. Imperial C. * Chelsea C. Wye C. Royal C. Art Cam. Ins. Ed. * Ox. Dept. Ed. * Richmond C•

• -64-

TABLE 1. - MANUAL CURRENT" AWARENESS SERVICES 197.3/1983 TECHNO- LONDON! TYPE OF SERVICE CIVIC NEW LOGICAL COLLEGES TOTAL New Accessions Lists 1973 83% 50% 84% 69% 75% 1983 68% 50% 55% 36% 55%

Information on New Publications 197.3 79% 60% 61% 46% 65% 1983 21% 12% 55% 36% 29%

Photocopied Contents Pages 197.3 33% 50% 61% . 15% )8% 1983 52% 25% 44% 27% 40%

. SDI 1973 16% 30% 15% 1983 44%

Internal Current Awareness BUlletins 1973 20% 10% 30% -- 16% 1983 10% 33% 9% 12% -65-

TABLE 8 THE FUNDING AND CONTROL OF COMPUTER-BASED SERVICES

FINANCED BY LIlI' FINANCED DEPT FINANCED DEFT FINANCED INDIVIDUALS LIBRAR~ LIB CONTROLLED LIB MONITORED DEPT CONTROLLED LIE CONTROLLED GROUP ONE: CIVIC. Manchester * Edinburgh * * * Leeds * Glasgow * Aberdeen * Nottingham Leicester * , Hull * Sheffield * St Andrews * " , Southampton * * Durham Newcastle * Aberystwyth * Cardiff * ,Dundee * B"angor no services available yet Lampeter no services available Welsh Sc Med * GROUP TWO: NEW. Lancaster * Sussex * East Anglia * Keele * Kent * Stirling * York * Ulster * -66-

TABLE 8 CONTINUED FINANCED BY LIB. FINANCED DEFT FINANCED DEFT FINANCED INDIVIDUALS LIBRARY LIE CONTROLLED LIB MONITORED DEFT CONTROLLED LIB CONTROLLED GROUP THREE: TECHNOLOGICAL. Surrey *. Stratholyde * Aston * * Loughborough * * B"runel * Salford *' City * * Bath * Heriot-Watt * GROUP FOUR: LONDON COLLEGES. London * University C. * Holloway C. * Bedford C. no servioe available Imperial C. * Chelsea C. * Wy.e C. * Royal C. Art no servioe available Cam. Ins. Ed. no servioe available Ox. Dept. Ed. no servioe available yet Riohmond -C•. no servioe available -67-

TABLE 9 COMPUTER-BASED INFORMATION SERVICES

COMPUTERISED CA COMPUTERISED RETROSPECTIVE LIBRARY STANDARD PROFILES SDI PROFILES SEARCHING GROUP ONE: CIVIC. Manchester * Edinburgh * Leeds * * Glasgow * * Aberdeen * Nottingham * * Leicester * * * Hull * Sheffield * St Andrews * * Southampton * * Durham * * Newcastle Aberystwyth * * Cardiff * * Dundee * * * Blmgor no services available Lampeter no services available Welsh Sc Med * * GROUP TWO: NEW. .: ..

Lancaster * * Sussex * East Anglia * K-eele Kent * Stirling * York * Ulster * * -68-

TABLE 9 CONTINUED COMPUTER-BASED INFORMATION SERVICES COMPUTERISED CA COMPUTERISED RETROSPECTIViE ' LIBRARY STANDARD PROFILES SDI PROFILES SEARCHING GROUP THREE: TECHNOLOGICAL. Surrey­ * Strathcly,de * * * As ton * * Loughborough * * Brunel * * Sal£ord * * City * Bath * * Heriot-Watt * GROUP FOUR: LONDON COLLEGES. London * University C. * Holloway' C. * * * Bedford C. no services available ,Imperial C. * Chelsea C. * W;we C. * Royal C. Art no services availalHe Cam. Ins. Ed. no services available Ox. Dept. Ed. no services availalille Richmond C. no services available -69-

APPENDIX I(a)

THE QUESTIONNAIRE SENT TO: -70-

LITERATURE 8EARCHING IN BHITI8H UNtV<;RSITY LIBRARIES: A QUESTIONNAIRE

A. BACKGROUND INFORHATION (THE UNIVERSITY AND THE LIBRARY)

1.(a) How many teaching staff are employed by the University? •••••••••••• (b) How many students attend the University? Full-time •••••••••••• Part-time •••••••••••

2.(a) Is the library on one main site? (YES or NO) •••••••••••• (b) If there are site libraries, please state: •.....•.•.....•...... ••...... •...... •...... •...... •...... •...... •.••...

(c) Are there any libraries situated in University departments? (YES or NO) ••••••••••.

If so, please. name the departments that have them: ...... ~ .••.....•...... ••••••...... •.•••••....•....••..•..•..•...•.••....•...... •...••.•...•...... •.....••..••...... •..•...•.••...... •...... •...... •....•..•...... •. 3.(a) How many volumes does the library currently hold? ...... •..• (b) What is the library's current periodical intake? •••••••••••••••

(c) What is the subject coverage of the titles held by the library? Please tick the appropriate box/boxes . Science Technology Social Sciences Arts Humanities

4. How many staff are employed in the library? Chartered or qualified ••••••••••••••••

Non-professional ......

B. BACKGROUND INFORt-IATION (TIlE INFORHATION SERVICES)

1.(a) Who provides the library's information services? (Please give numbers and status, ie. whether information officer, subject specialist, reference librarian, clerical assistant etc.) •.•...... •..•.•...... •...... •...... •...... ••.....•..•...... •....••••. •••..•...... •...... ••.....•...•..•...•...... •...... •..••••••.•.•.

(b) If the staff providing the information services do so for or~y part of their time, please state what their other duties are:

...... -•.....•.•..••.•....•.....•...•.•...... ••...... •...•••...••••• .....••..•...... •...... ••...... •...... •...... •• ..•...... •..•....•...... •.••...•.....•...... ••...... ••.....•••...••.•••• -71-

2.(a) Is there an actual information office/department? (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

(b).Where·is the information function carried out? Please tick the aopropriate box/boxe'·i

In the r:Iain library (in one place) I In libraries in University departments In separate areas of the main library (ie. on separate floors) Other

If other, please state: ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ••••..•.....••...... •..•...... •...... •.•....•...... •...... •...... •..•. •...... (c) What are the physical surroundings of those carrying out the information function? Please tick the appropriate box/boxes. In offices Open to public access Other

If other, please state: •••••••••••••••••••••••.••••••••••••••••••••••• ~ •••••••••••

...... •...... ~ ..•••...... •....•••.•...•..•...... ••.•...••.•• .....•••.....•..••••..•..•••...... •...... •.....•...... •...... •...... ••..•••••.•• c. MANUAL LITERATURB SEARCHINli SEHVICES

1.(a) Is there any general notification of new publications? (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

(b) Is this notification formal, informal or both? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• (c) If formal, please state methods used: ......

...... ~ ...... •.•.•.•...... •...... •...... • (d) Does the library produce a.ccessions lists? (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

(e) If.. so, are they divided into subject areas'l (YES or 110) ••••••••••••

(f) Please state the subject areas covered: •.•...... ~ ...... ••.•••...... •..•...... •...... •...... ••••.....•...•..••••...•• ...... • (g) Is there any othel' form of notification of accessions? (YES or NO) • •.•••••••••• If so, please state methods used: ...... •....••...••..•....•.•.....••..•...... •.••....•....•...... •..•..•••..• •..•....•....•...... •...... •...... •.•....•...... •....• -72-

2.(a) Are photocopies of· journal contents circulated? (YES or NO) •••••••••••• (b) If so, in what subject areas? ...... •...... •......

(c) Who receives them~ (Individual members of staff, all the staff of a department, th· departmental representative, postgraduate r~searchers etc.)

.•...... ~ ...... ~ ...... •...••...... •...... •••••....•... 3.(a) Are photocopies of commercially available abstracts circulated? (YES or NO) ••••••• (b) If so, please state which abstracts: ...... ••....•...... •.....••...... ••.••....•.....•••...... •••.•...••..•...•..•

(c) Who receives them? (Individual members of staff, all the staff of a department, th. departmental representative, postgraduate researchers etc.) ......

4. (a) Are journals circulated" (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

(b) If so, in which subject areas? ...... •••....•..•....•...... (c) Who receives them? .•...... •...... ••••.•.....•...... •.••....••••..•... 5.(a) Are Current Contents circulated? (YES or NO) •••••••••••• (b) If so, please state subject areas covered: ...... •...... •...... ••.•...•••... •.....•••...... •.....•...•.....••...... ••••...•.•...... •..•...... ••••.•.•. (c) Who receives them? ...... •••..•.••••...•.••.•.•.....•..•.....••••.•.•.•.

6.(a) Are commercially produced abstracts circul~ted? (YES or NO) •••••••••••• (b) If so, please state abstracts used: ......

•••••••••••••• ~ •••••• oooo •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ,••••••••••••••••.••••••••

(c) Who receives them? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••.

7.(a) Does the library produce any current awareness bUlletins? (YF~ or NO) •••••••••••• (b) If so, please state the subject areas covered: ...... •...... •...... •.•...... •...... •.. -13-

(c) Do these 'contain: (Please tick the appropriate box/boxes) Lists of titles Lists of abstracts . . Other

If other, please state: ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ......

(d) Are these bulletins circulated? (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

(e) If so, who receives them? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

(f) Is primary or secondary material scanned for CA bulletins? (ie. journals or abstrac and indexes) ...... (g) How many people do the scanning and for how many hours per week? •••••••••••••••••• ...... (h) What is the status of those doing the scanning? (Information officer, subject specialist, clerical assistant etc.) •...... •...... 8.(a) Does the library have available information bulletins produced by other libraries or any other external information sources? (YES, or NO) ••••••••••••• (b) If so, please state: ...... •...... •...... •. (c) Are these bulletins circulated? (YBS or NO) •••••••••••• (d) If so, who receives them? ...... •...... •.. 9.(a) Does the library provide anY SDI notification? (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

(b) In what form is the SDI notification? Please tick the appropriate box/boxes. A reference An abstract An annotated abstract A title A photocopy Other

If other, please state: ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ....•...... •...... •..•...... •..•...... ••...... (c) Are lists of users interests kept? (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

(d) If so, what form do these take? ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• , -74- ...... •...... •.•...... •... •...... •..•..•.•...... •.•...... •....•.•••.•.•.....•••..•..•....••......

(e) Are primary or secondary sources scanned? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••.

(f) How many people do the scanning, and for how many hours per week? ••••••••••••••• •••...... •••...... ••.•...... ••....•.•.•...... •..•..•..••••.••.• (g) What is the status of those who do the scanninf,? (Information officer, subject specialist, clerical assistant etc.) ...... •.•...... •• 10.(a) Does the library provide a manual retrospective searching service? (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

(b) If so, what is the status of those doing the searching? ••••••••••••••••••••••••• •...... •...... (c) Who can ask for a retrospective search'! (Staff, researchers, undergraduates) ...... •...•......

(d) How many searches are ma~e in a year? •••••••••••••••••••

D. COMPUTER-BASED LITBRATURE SEARCHING SERVICES

1. Where does the money for computer-based information services come-from, and who controls it? Please tick the appropriate box/boxes. Library financed- library controlled Department financed - library monitored Department_ financed - department controlled Other . If other, please state: .••...... ••....•.•..•.....••••.•....•••••.••••••......

2.(a) Does the library conduct any computerised current awareness searches throug~ commercial data bases? (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

(b) If 50, what subject areas do they cover? ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •...... (c) Are library searches done by batch or on-line methods1 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••

(d) If searches are on-line, what is the status of the person who conducts them?

.•.....••••...•...... •.•.••.•.....••....•...... ••~ (e) Are there any standard profiles for computer searches? (YES or NO) ••••••••••••

If so t how many have been ~onstructed·l •••••••••••••• -75-

(f) Are there any oDI profiles for computer- searches? (YBO or NO) ••••••••••••

If so, how many have been constructed? ••••••••••• e._ ~

(g) How many current.awareness searches are done per year? •••••••••••••• 3. Does the library buy in batch current awareness searches from outside? (YES or NO) •••••••••••• 4.(a) Does the library have any computerised data bases of its own available? (YES or NO) ••••••••••• (b) If so, what are they, and what services do they provide? ...... • ..•...... •...... •...... • •...•...... •...... •...... •...... '.(a) Does the library do any computerised retrospective searches? (YES or NO) •••••••••• (b) If so, how many are done per year? ••••••••••••••

(c) What subject areas do these searches cover? •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ..•......

E. CLID1T REACTION

1.(a) Are any surveys of clients reactions to information provision made? (Yl!;S or NO) ••••••••••••

(b) Is there any other feedback from clients1 (YBO or NO) ••••••••••••

(c) If so, please state what form this takes: ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •...... •...... •..•...... •...... •...... •...... 2.. What, in general, are the reactions (if any) of clients to the services you provid,

.,

F. PROBUMS

1. What problems are encountered in providing a manual information service? (staffing, relevance of material, coverage of field, costs, supplying material found etc.) -76-

2. What problems are encountered in providing a computerised information service? (staffing, relevance of material, coverage of field, supplying material, costs etc ;

G. RESULTS

If you would like to be sent a copy of the questionnaire's results, please leave your name and address .below.

Once again, THANK YOU. -77-

APPENDIX r(b)

THE COVERING LETTER -78-

Department Of Library And Information Studies. Loughborough University.

Loughborough, Leice·stershire.

Dear Sir

I am a postgraduate student in the Department of Library and Information Studies at Loughborough University. As part of my MSc I am writing a thesis on the provision of literature searching services in University Libraries in Great Britain. In order to gather information on this topic I am sending the attached questionnaire to the fifty-one University Libraries in Great Britain. I would be very "'. , grateful if you could take the time to fill in the questions and return it to me in the stamped, addressed envelope enclosed. I apologiSe for the timing of· this questionnaire, coming, as it does, at the end of the busiest academic term, but the constraints of my course prevent me from waiting for a more convenient moment. I also apologise for the length of the questionnaire, but I have endeavoured to make it as concise as possible. The results of this survey, I believe, will be very interesting, (the last comprehensive questionnaire on this subject was conducted in 1973 for SCONUL) and if you would be interested in its findings, I would be happy to send to you a summary of the results, prior to the completion of the thesis proper. If you wish to be informed of the survey's results, you may indicate so at the end of the questionnaire. Thank you for your co-operation.

Yours since~ ~

Thesis Supervisor: -79-

APPENDIX I(e)

THE HEMINDER LETTER -80-

Department of Library and Information Studies, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire.

Dear Sir,

APproximately a month ago I sent a questionnaire on literatilresearching to you in connection with my HSc dissertation. To date I have received thirty replies, and whilst this is a very satisfactory response rate, I would like to get as many back as I can. I realise'that my questionnaire arrived at a very busy time, and that it is extremely long. The information it asks for, however, is quite straightforward, and a lot of your responses, I suspect, will be simply a 'NO' to the first question in each section, making the rest of the questions in that section irrelevant. I hope that

,you will be able to find the time to fill in this second copy and return it to me in the stamped, addressed envelope enclosed. Please ignore this letter if you have posted the questionnaire since the 18th. July.

Thank you foryour'co-operation.

Yours sincerely,

Dissertation Supervisor: Tom Whitehall

Department of Library,and Information Studies, Loughborough University, Loughborough. -81-

APPENDIX II

LIS'1I' OF UNIVERSITY" LIBRARIES SUR'WE'l!ED -82-

REPLIES RECEIVED FROM: NO REPLIES RECEIVED FROM:

Aberdeen :Belfast Aston Birmingham Bath Bradford B"runel Bristol Buckingham Cambridge Cambridge· Inst. of Educ. Cranfield Inst. of Technology City Essex Dundee Exeter Durham Liverpool East Anglia London: Edinburgh Birkbeck College Glasgow Heythrop College Heriot-Watt Kings College Hull LSE Keele Queen Elizabeth College Kent Queen Mary College Lancaster Westfield College Leeds UMIST Leicester Reading London: . Wales: University Library UWIST Bedford College Welsh Plant B"reeding Station Chelsea College Warwick Imperial College Richmond College Royal Holloway College University College Wye College Loughborough Manchester Newcastle upon Tyne Ifottingham .. Oxford Oxford Dept. of Educ. Studies Royal College of Art St Andrews Salford Sheffield Southampton Stirling Strathclyde Surre:ll" Sussex Ulster Wales: Aberystwyth lllulgor Cardiff· Lampeter Welsh Nat. Sch. of Medicine York -83-

APPENDIX III

RESPONSE RATE OVER TIME

• -84-

14 _I--..,

13

12

11-

9

8

NO. OF 7 REPLIES 6

5

4

3

2

1

1 2 J: 4 5 6 7 8 9 10; 11 12 113 1'4 TIME (IN WEEKS)

NB. 55.1% of the questionnaires returned were received in the first three weeks. The effect of sending-reminders (posted in the sixth week) can be seen quite clear17. -85-

REFERENCES

(1) AYRES,F.H. and HALL,J. Information services in university libraries. SCONUL, 1974.

(2) HALL,J. Survey of information services in British unIversity libraries. Journal of Librarianship, 1975 :

7(2), p.113.

(3) See especially these three: GUY,S.M.W. The provision of information services in university and polytechnic libraries in the United Kingdom in the field of humanities: a survey conducted in

1211. E~eter University, 1977. (British Library Research and Development Report 5379.) HALL,C.M. The development of current awareness services

in polytechnic libraries. with particular refe~ence to science. technology and associated subject fields. MLS

Dissertation. Loughborough University of Technolo~,

1977. LAMBERT,J. A survey of the current awareness and selective dissemination of information· (SDI) services with particular reference to university libraries: the position in the south east. MA Dissertation. The Polytechnic of North London, 1980.

(4) KEMP,A. Current awareness services. Bingley, 1979, p.12. -86-

(5) NEAL,K.W. British university libraries. 2nd ed. Neal, 1978, p.107.

(6) See especially: LINE,M.B. University libraries and the information needs of the researcher 1: A provider's view. Aslib Proceedings, 1966 : 18(7), pp.178-184. LINE ,M .F. Information services in uni vers i ty libraries. Journal of Librarianship, 1969 : 1(4), pp.211-224. LINE,M.H. Information services in a technological university: plans and prospects. Information SCientist, 1971 : 5(2), pp.77-88.

(7) ASHWORTH,W. The information officer in the university library. Library Association Record, 1939 : 41(12),

(8) MACKENNA,R.O. Assistance in university libraries, in . -- HEPWORTH,P. A primer of assistance to readers. 2nd ed. Association of Assistant Librarians, 1956, p.33.

(9) UNIVERSITY. GRANTS COMMITTEE. Report of the Committee on libraries. HMSO, 1967, para.484. ~~

(10) UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMITTEE. ~.

(11) LINE,M.~ Information services in university libraries. Op.cit. p.222. -87-

(12) CALLAGHAN,A. et al. Students' chemical information project. Final report. Parts 1 and 2. Office for Scientific and Technical Information, 1969. (OSTI Reports 5046 and 5047.)

(13) CORFIELD,M.G. et al. The Liaison scientist experiment: a study of the provision of mechanised current awareness to university chemists. Oxford University, Experimental Information Unit, 1973. (OSTI Report 5169.)

(14) LEGGATE,P. et al. The BA Previews project: the development and evaluation of a mechanised SDI service for biologists. Oxford University, Experimental Information Unit, 1973. (OSTI Report 5140.)

(15) BARRACLOUGH,E.D. et al. The MEnUSA current awareness experiment. University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1975. (British Library Research and Development Report 5268.)

(16) UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM. Project for evaluating the benefits from university libraries. Final report. Durham University, 1969.

(11) BATH UNIVERSITY LIBRARW. Experimental information service in the social sciences 1969-1971. Final report. Bath University, 1972. -88-

(18) HALL,J. Information services in university libraries. As lib ·Proceedings, 1972 : 24(5), pp.293-294 •.

(19) CORNE'W,E.J. The information service in practice: an experiment at the City University. Journal of Librarianship, 1969 : 1(4), p.22q.

(20) HALL,J. SurveT of information services. Op.cit. p.131.

(21) H'ALL,J. Ibid.

(22) LINE,M.E•. Information services in university libraries. Op.cit. p.213.

(23) GUY',S.M.W. Op.cit. p.5.

(24) HALL,J. Survey of information services. Op.cit. p.125.

(25) AYRES,F.H. and HALL,J. Op.cit. p.50.

(26) LEGGATE,P. et al. Op.cit. p.115.

(27) EVANS,S.M. and LINE,M.B. A personalised service to academic researchers: the Experimental Information Service in the Social Sciences at the University of Bath. Journal of Librarianship, 1973 : 5(3), p.23.0. -89-

(28) SMITH,G.M. Library-based information services in higher education: towards a reappraisal. Aslib Proceedings, 1975 : 27(6), p.244.

(29) SMITH,G.M. Cause for concern. New Library World, 1977 : 78(928), p.189.

(30) CORNET,E.J. Op.cit. p.232.

(31) VINCENT,I. and SEALS,J.H. A manual current awareness service at the University of Aston. Aslib Proceedings, 1975 : 27(6), p.256.

(32) WHITEHALL,T. A future for the bulletin?: the results of an enquiry into how bulletins are used in today's special library. Aslib Proceedings, 1973 : 25(2), p.41.

(33) ROWLEY,J.E. Locally produced current awareness services. Aslib Proceedings, 1979 : 31(6), p.289.

(J4) ROWLEY',J .E. ~.

(35) LAMBERT,J. Op.cit. p.38.

(36) NEAL,K.W. Op.cit. p.109.

(37) VICKERY',A. Clash of interests in computer information services. Information Processing And Management, 1978 : 14(1), pp.40-41. -90-

(38) ANDREW,G. and ATTENBOROUGH,C. Libraries and IT. Library Association Record, 1983 : 85(6), pp.221-224.

(39) WINSHIP,I.R. "Modest,.- on I'll", Letters. Library Association Record, 1983 : 85(7/8), p.277.

(40) LAMBERT,J~ Op.cit. p.83.

(41) AYRES,F.H. and HALL,J. Op.cit. p.5.

(42) OPPENBEIM,A.lf. Questionnaire design and attitude measurement. Heinemann, 1966, p.33.

(43) HALL,C.M. Op.cit.

(44) HALL,J. Survey" of information services. Op.cit. pp.113-114.

(45) CORNEY:,E.J. Op.cit. p.22"8.

(46) HALL,J. Survey" of information services. Op.cit. pp.115-116.

(47) lIALL,J. ng,; p.122.

(48) "lIALL,J. ~. p.121.

(49) LAMBERT,J. Op.cit. p.26.

(50) HALL,J. Survey of information services. Op.cit. p.125. -91-

(51) HALL,J. ~. p.126.

".. -92-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ANDREW,G. and ATTENBOROUGH,C. Libraries and IT. Library Association Record, 1983 : 85(6), pp.221-224.

ASHWORTH,W. The information officer in the university library. Library Association Record, 1939 : 41(12), pp.583-584.

AYRES,F.W. and HALL,J. Information services in university libraries. SCONUL, 1974.

BARKLA,J.K. The University of Sheffield Biomedical Information Project. Information Scientist, 1969 : 3(1), pp.13-30.

BARR,D. Academic libraries in deciine. New Library World, 1976: 77(916), pp.185-187.

BARR,K. and LINE,M.B. EssaYs on information and libraries: a festschrift for Donald Urguart. Hingley, 1975.

BARRACLOUGH,E.D. et al. The MEDUSA current awareness experiment. University of Newcastle upon Tyne, .1975. (British Library Research and Development Report 5268.)

BATH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. Experimental information service in the·social sciences 1969-1971. Final report. Bath University, 1972. -93-

BRYAN,H. University libraries in Britain: a new look. Bingley, 1976.

CALLAGHAN,A. et al. Students'chemical information project. Final report. Part 1. Office for Scientific and Technical Information, 1969. (OSTI Report 5046.)

CALLAGHAN,A. etal. Students' chemical information project. Final report. Part 2. Office for Scientific and Technical Information,1969. (OST! Report 5047.)

CASEY,M.C. The studr of an experimental SDI system using citation indexes. Dissertation. Chicago University, 1970.

CORFIELD,M.G. et al. The Liaison scientist experiment: a study of the provision of mechanised current awareness to university chemists. Oxford UniverSity, Experimental Information Unit, 1973. (OSTI Report 5169;)

CORNEY,E.J. The information ~er.vice in practice: an experiment : .. at the City University. Journal of Librarianship, 1969 : .1.(4), 225-235.

COWLEY ,J. Libraries in higher education. Blngley, 1976.

DOLBY,J.L. trniversit:r libraries and the information needs of the researcher 2: A consumer's view •. Aslib Proceedings, 1966 : 18(7), 185-190. -94-

EVANS,S.M. Information services for the universities. Aslib Proceedings, 1973 : 25(12), 484-490.

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GUY,S.M.W. The provision of information services in university and polytechnic libraries in the United Kingdom in the field of humanities: a survey conducted in 1977. Exeter University, 1977. (British Library Research and Developmen.t Report 5379.)

HALL,C.M. The development- of current awareness services in polytechnic libraries. with particular reference to science-, technology and associated subject fields. MLS Dissertation. Loughborough University of Technology, 1977.

HALL,J. Information services in university~ libraries. Aslibl Proceedings, 1972 : 24(5), 293-302.

HALL,J. Survey of information services in British university . . libraries. Journal of Librarianship, 1975 : 7(2), 112-131.

HOLT,J.A. Selective dissemination of information: a review of the literature and the issues. Dissertation. University of Chicago, 1967. -95-

KEMP,A. Current awareness servioes. Bingley, 1919.

LAMBERT,J. A survey of the current awareness and seleotive dissemination of information (SDI) servioes with partioular referenoe to university libraries: the position in the south east. MA Dissertation. The Polyteohnic of North London, 1980.

LEGGATE,P. et al. The BA Previews projeot: the development and evaluation of a meohanised SDI servioe for biologists. Oxford University, Experimental Information Unit, 1913. (OSTI Report 5140. )

LEGGATE,P. Computer-based current awareness servioes. Journal of Dooumentation. 1915 : 31(2), 93-115.

LEIGH',J .A. Guide to oomputer-based literature searohing services in science and technology available in the U.K. British Library (Scienoe Reference Library), 1916.

LINE,M.B.Information services in university libraries. Journal of Librarianship, 1969 : 1(4), 211-224.

LINE,M.~ Information services in a technological university: plans and ·prospects. Information SCientist, 1911 : 5(2), 11-88.

LINE,M.B. University libraries and the information needs of the researcher 1: A provider's view. Aslib Proceedings, 1966 : 18(1), 118-184. -96-

LINN,P.M. The engineering information service at Loughborough University: practical experience of providing an SDI service from COMPENDEX. tapes. Program, 1915 :- 9(2), 64-11.

MACKENNA,R.O. Assistance in university libraries. ~ HEPWORTH,P. A primer of assistance to readers. 2nd ed. Association of Assistant Librarians, 1956.

NEAL,K.W. British university libraries. 2nd ed. Neal, 1978.

OPPENHEIM,A.N. Questionnaire design and attitude measurement. Heinemann, 1966.

ROWLEY,J.E. Locally produced current awareness services. Aslib Proceedings, 1979 : 31(6), 284-295.

SMITH,G.M. Library-based information services in higher education

: towards a reappr~isal. Aslib Proceedings, 1975 : 21(6), 239-246.

SMITH,G.M. Cause for· concern. New Library World,1977 : 78(928) 189-190.

UNIVERSI~ GRANTS COMMITTEE. Report of the Committee on libraries. HMSO, 1961.

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VINCENT,I. and SEArs ,J.H. A manual current awareness service at the University of Aston. Aslib Proceedings, 1915 : 21(6), 241-261.

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WINSHIP,I.R. "Modesty on IT" Letters. Library Association Record, 198) : 85(1/8), 211.·