DOCUMENTATION SERVICES AND LIBRARY CO‐OPERATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
| Published date | 01 April 1965 |
| Pages | 256-260 |
| Date | 01 April 1965 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026374 |
| Author | A.J. WALFORD |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
DOCUMENTATION SERVICES AND
LIBRARY CO-OPERATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
A. J. WALFORD
Ministry of
Defence,
London
IN 1951 Barbara Kyle and I presented a joint paper on 'Co-operation be-
tween libraries specializing in the social sciences' at the
1951
Library Asso-
ciation Conference, Edinburgh.1 That brief survey dealt with documenta-
tion services and library co-operation in Britain at the time. Undoubtedly
advances have been made since then and we can see more clearly the gaps
and anomalies, particularly
as
compared with corresponding achievements
in science and technology.
I. DOCUMENTATION SERVICES
The problem of the documentation of the social sciences
is less
bemusing if
we conceive it in terms of the component disciplines, while conceding that
there is appreciable overlap between them. We take the term 'social
sciences' here to include political science, economics, statistics, law, soci-
ology, psychology, and education. What bibliographical services provide
for one particular discipline is a potential pattern for all the others, as Peter
Lewis has observed.2
Some excellent guides to the literature of the social
sciences,
both general
and special, have appeared, among them Peter Lewis's The
literature
of the
social sciences
(1960), A. R. Hewitt's Guide to resources for
Commonwealth
studies
(1957), Helen F. Conover's
Guide
to
bibliographic
tools for
research
in
foreign affairs
(1956;
2nd ed., 1958), and S. K. Kimmance's brief
Guide to the
literature
of
education
(1958; rev. ed. 1961). Others are in prospect. Yet we
have nothing to compare with
E.
T. Coman's
Sources
of
business information
(2nd ed., 1964). Two Unesco contributions, A
register
of
legal documentation
in the
world
(2nd ed., 1957) and the
International guide
to
educational
docu-
mentation,
1955-1960
(1963), have great merit, but they need bringing up
to date.
A list of indexing and abstracting
services is
a
necessity.
The fourth edition
of Index
bibliographicus,
v.2:
Social sciences
(1964) was long overdue. Even
so,
it omits such major bibliographical tools, as
the
Public
Affairs Information
Service bulletin
and the quarterly Economics
Library
Selections,
Series 1
(latterly
published by the University of Pittsburgh Department of
Economics).
It
256
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