INFORMATION SOURCES

Primary Sources:

UNESCO defines the primary documentary sources as “original scientific paper describing new research, techniques or apparatus”.

-         Research Reports/Papers

-         Manuscripts

-         Newspapers

-         Patents

-         Standards

-         Journals

-         Theses

-         Conference Proceedings

Secondary Sources:

Secondary sources are compiled form of primary sources. 

-         Directory of  Research organizations

-         Hand Books

-         Encyclopaedias

-         Books

-         Text books

-         Statistical hand books

-         Year Books

-         Abstracting periodicals

-         Abstracting Services

-         British National Bibliography (BNB)

-         India a Reference Annual (published by publication division, New Delhi).

-         Reviews

Tertiary Sources:

Tertiary sources are second level compilation of secondary sources.  Growth or explosion of information and secondary sources in particular lead to the emergence of tertiary sources.

-         List of abstracting services

-         Directory of R & D institutions

-         Chemical Abstracts

-         World bibliography of bibliographies

Bibliography of bibliographies: – compilation of primary and secondary sources.

Encyclopaedia – the word was first used in 1559 – by ‘Paul Schalich’

 Encyclopaedia of Britannica I st edition published in the year 1768, II nd edition was published in 1771 and had three volumes.

New Encyclopaedia of Britannica is published from Chicago, its 9^th edition is called ‘Scholars edition’ and had three parts.  15^th edition of the same had thirty volumes.

Encyclopaedia Americana – published by “Grolier” from New York and had thirty volumes.

Encyclopaedia of Library and Information Science published by M.Dekker and edited by “Allen Kent” and “Harold Lancour”.

International Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences published by ‘Macmillan and Free Press’ had eighteen volumes.

University Handbook is published by ‘Association of Indian Universities’ from New Delhi.

The word ‘Thesaurus’ has its origin from Greek.

Oxford English Dictionary II edition was published in 1989.

World of Learning published by Europa publications, London is used to find any research institution in any country.

Directory of Scientific and Research Institutions in India is published by INSDOC.

‘Asian Recorder’ is published by Asian Recorder and Publications, New Delhi and is a weekly.

‘Facts on File’ is weekly published from New York.

Gazetteers of India has four volumes and is popularly known as ‘A geographical dictionary’.

‘Science Citation Index’ (SCI) published by ‘Institute of Scientific Information, Philadelphia’ from the year 1964.  Eugene Garfield (Father of Grey Literature) is its founder architect and its CD-ROM version is available from the year 1988.

‘Advances in Computers’ published by Academic Press, New York, and is an annual publication started in the year 1960.

‘Indian Dissertation Abstracts’ is published by ICSSR (Indian Council of Social Sciences Research).  ICSSR is renamed as NISCAIR (National Institute for Scientific Communication and Information Research).

Series of bibliographies on doctoral dissertations accepted by Indian universities from the year 1975 is published by Association of Indian Universities (AIU).

‘Current Contents’ is content by journal service published from USA.

COMPENDEX – refers to ‘Computerised form of Engineering Index’.

DESIDOC – refers to ‘Defence Scientific Documentation Centre’, and is associated with defence science and defence studies.

Various Areas of Library Automation:

-         Book Lending/Borrowing

-         Classification

-         Cataloguing

-         Indexing and Abstracting Services

-         Stock Verification

-         Shelf Rectification

-         Serial Control

Terms in Library Automation and their Abbreviations:

OPAC – Online Public Access Catalogue

MARC  - Machine Readable Catalogue

DTP – Desk Top Publishing

Various Library Networks :

ERNET:

Education and Research Networks. Department of Electronics, Government of India, controls this network and was established by United Nations Development Programme(UNDP).

NICNET:

National Informatics Centre Network, developed by the planning commission of India in the year 1972.  This network has regional centers at Pune, Bhuvaneshwar and Hyderabad.

CALIBNET:

Calcutta Library Network is a collective network comprising institutional libraries in Kolkata.

DELNET:

Development Library Network (also termed as Delhi Library Network) was initiated as a project in the year 1988.  This network is supported by NISSAT (National Information System Network for Science and Technology)

JANET:

Joint Academic Network, connects all universities in UK. The main aim of this network is to aid education and research activities in UK.  Apart from academic universities, the British Library and the Library of Whales are connected to this network. 

BLAISE:

British Library Automated Information Service, an online interactive information retrieval and cataloguing system.

OCLC:

Initially it was named as Ohio College Library Center and now called as Online Computer Library Center.  This network was established in the year 1967, by Frederic Kilgour.  The online cataloguing system of this network was available from 1971 onwards.

IFLIBNET:

-         Information Library Network was started as a project under Inter University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in the year 1991.

-         The credit for conceptualisation of the project rests with Professor.Yash Pal, the then chairman of UGC.

-         Connects the libraries of various universities and colleges throughout our country.

-         Developed exclusive software for libraries named SOUL (Software for University Libraries) which includes MARC-21, and CCF (Common Communication Format) formats.

-         Created a profile of about 20,000 experts in the field of science and technology with the help of NISSAT.

-         Created UGC-INFONET (University Grants Commission – Information Network)-  an education network for the university libraries in India, through which journals and databases are shared using consortium mode of approach.

-         Provides access to OCLC(Online Computer Library Center) and WLN (Western Library Network) of USA.

-         In India this network provides access to institutional networks such as IIT, DRDO (Defence Research Development Organization) and DAE (Department of Atomic Energy) Library and Information networks.

INIS – International Nuclear Information System

MEDLARS -  Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System of National Library of Medicine (NLM), USA has over 40 databases.

SENDOC - Small Enterprises National Documentation Centre

UNISIST - United Nations International System of Information on Science & Technology

UNISIST was launched by UNESCO in 1973.