Some Thoughts on Scientific Information Dissemination

Most of us have been aware for some years of a crisis in scientific information processing , caused by the large mass of available information products, and reflected by the present difficulties in providing the right information to the right persons at the right time. The existing facilities in our libraries and information centers are over-taxed by ever-increasing user populations, and the processing capabilities are choked by mountains of materials, including the conventional books and documents, as well as the newer types of information stored in data banks, or recorded on tapes, films, or cards. The result is a chronic inability on the part of most information processing centers in meeting current budget figures and in operating within the existing physical constraints, accompanied by a breakdown of the established operations for acquiring, indexing, classifying, storing, and retrieving the stored information items. There exist, unfortunately, no attractive solutions to the library problem within the presently prevailing technical and administrative framework. In the end, even the largest libraries will be forced to abandon their attempts to remain comprehen° sive and complete in every subject area. Compacts and cooperative ventures will very likely be introduced based on selective and shared acquisitions procedures-each center acquiring only certain types of materials; common cataloging and indexing methodology may have to be implemented, so that catalogs and search tools may service users at many different locations; common storage facilities will eventually house pooled sub-collections from many centers; and cooperative search and information dissemination facilities will insure that users can obtain access to many different information resources no matter where located. Obviously, such a restructuring of the existing information facilities cannot be contemplated unless standardized operations are agreed upon and some of the existing autonomy within each center is given up. In return for abandoning the dozens of different cataloging standards and the many incompatible information acquisition and circulation systems, it will be possible to introduce meaningful and financially viable mechanized operations, and the resulting increases in efficiency and processing capability will be reflected in an elimination of much duplicated processing, a streamlining of library operations, and a drastic reduction of the demands presently made on the professional personnel in charge of information handling. It would be nice to assert with confidence that the changes outlined above are just around the corner. However, human nature being what it is, one may expect that ten, or perhaps twenty, more …