International indices of and trends in periodical production and the library practice II.

Abstract

As a continuation of her earlier review-article (TMT, 1974. Nr. 6.) on special literature, the author now confronts the results achieved by the international special literature with the library practice by examining the following problems:
‒ the division of the world production of periodicals by the number of periodical types;
‒ the annual growth of periodical output;
‒ annual increase in the number of published articles and studies; types of periodicals;
‒ the problem of the so-called “half-life”;
‒ BRADFORD's law of scattering in the field of special literature;
‒ degree of abstracting periodicals on international level.
The author is of the opinion that due to the present voluminous-ness of periodicals available and to the upward trend of production, the librarian should make thereasions efforts to analyse the stock of periodicals in his library and to get well acquainted with the world trends in the production of periodicals. Based on Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory indices are provided to express the percentage of current foreign periodicals presently available in the large libraries of Hungary. To determine the optimum size of the stock of library with well-defined objectives is by no means a simple task because the richness of collection, when a relatively complete coverage is aimed at, may, also impede literature search. The author offers several solutions for making the over-sized collection easier to survey.
With regard to the types of periodical literature, the author establishes that the use of abstracting journals on the part of the readers is inadequate. Analysing the situation one can come to the conclusion – as opposed to those who entertain pessimistic views – that the acquisition of abstracting periodicals is still a key issue. Clearly, the author shares the opinion of those who point out the contradiction that lies in the half-life concept. While the calculations of half-life based on citations should be carried out by professionals, determining half-life as measured in library practice ought to be left to the librarian's discretion. With respect to BRADFORD’s law of scattering the view is maintained that the applicability of this law to special literature should be scrutinized not only on international scale, but also on national level. S. DÖRNYEI’s survey, limited to national boundaries, is a good example of evaluating the effect of this law. Such a survey of material on stock was made in Hungary in the fields of sociology and engineering sciences, the latter broken down by special branches. The knowledge gained by such a survey can play a key role in the subsequent acquisition process. Furthermore, an investigation of BRADFORD’s law should depict the scattering pattern of information communicated In their totality, as well as in their grouping according to branches in interdisciplinary periodicals. The author shares B. C. BROOK’s opinion that editing offices saturated with articles may disturb the general validity of this law. Data at hand give scientific support to observations concerning the habits of readers, e.g. how intensely readers search through periodicals relevant or related to their field of interest and how deeply they concern themselves with periodicals of general interest. Then the directions of an investigation of abstracting activities are examined.
Firstly, one can investigate the extent to which abstracting services in foreign countries are focusing on Hungarian periodical production;
‒ secondly, the degree to which foreign periodical literature is abstracted in Hungary, and finally,
‒ the ratio of abstracted material in the stock of periodicals of a given library.
By deriving an index from the last point, one is able to evaluate the international scientific value of the collection under study.