CHARACTERISTICS OF PUBLISHED CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

A sample of conference proceedings received at the National Lending Library in 1970 has been analysed for publication delay, physical form, subject, publisher, size, language and presence of indexes, synopses, and discussions. The interdependence of these attributes with one another is discussed. Of the conferences that ought to have indexes only 22% have subject indexes and 26% author indexes. One in every four conferences deals with medicine. The median of publication delay is twelve months. Two‐thirds of all conference proceedings have from nine to fifty papers. The social sciences separate out as a distinct group having long publication delays, few large conferences, and being published mainly by university publishers.