CURRENT AWARENESS SERVICE-WHAT IT IS?

EY.amines the growth of current awareness aervicesand publications and then spells out the main chara~-teristics of a current awar ene s s list. On the basis0(' these characteri.tic8 examines some of the Indianlists.Introduction

Although Current Awareness Service(CAS) is a term of recent origin in the voca-bulary of special librarians and informationspecialists a search for its definition or whatit stands for leaves one confused. This can benot iced from Guha [1) when he says "it is dif-ficult to draw a sharp line of demarcation bet-ween a current awareness service and anyother type of indexing and abstracting service. "Bottle [2) has coined altogether a new name"General alerting service" as he finds CAS"means so many different things to differ-entpeople". An examination of the CAS in thecountry leaves a hazy picture. An attempt ismade in this paper to understand what a CASis and how far the existing dissemination ser-vices in the country really fall under this cate-gory.

Some of the terms used to identify orassociated with a CAS as found in the literatureare "annotated documentation", "local docu-mentations, I advance infor,mation", "generalalerting", "appetiser-, - express information",-early warnings. However, the context inwhich these terms are used tend to show twobroad categories of these periodical publica-tions - one which is international in scope andthe other restricted to an individual organisa-tion. Even within the CAS a distinction ismade between 'general' and 'selective'.

Channel for Awareness

The normal channels by which a scientistkeeps himself aware of new developments arethrough:

Direct perusal of periodicals and otherpr irnary publication;

Vol 19 No 4 Dec 1972

Meera G JoshiGJ NarayanaInstitute of Armament TechnologyGirinagar. Poona-25

2 Scanningof secondary publicationssuch as abstracting and indexingjournals;

3 Internal dissemination media of hisown organisation;

4 Private communication, exchange-ofreprints, preprints etc. ; and

5 Personal contact with colleagues andother workers in the field throughmeetings, discussions, conferences,etc.

The awareness of new developments ori-ginating from the first three approaches listedabove is directly. linked with the published lite-rature and their coverage. Hence in the con-text of dissemination of published information,apart from the intellectual capacity of the indi-vidual and relevancy of information, it is thecoverage that largely determines the awareness.So long the published literature was withinmanageable limits, the abstracting and index-ing journals could cope with "coverage- and anindividual worker could hope to keep himselfreasonably up-to-date in his field. This sud-denly changed after the Second World War.

Demand for Speed

The post-war period saw a rapid growthof scientific research and technical develop-ments. There emerged new technologies,inter-disciplinary and group research, newermedia and forms of communication. This re-sulted in what is often referred to now by thecliche "exponential growth" of literature and"information explos ion'", It was virtuallyimpossible for the various abstracting andindexing services to keep pace with this increa-sing output of literature. The time gap betweenthe publication of a paper and its reporting inan abstracting journal became so wide that ittook many months and sometimes years to re-port them. This time gap deprived the abs-

179

JOSHI &t NARAYANA

tracting and indexing journals much of theirvalue as a dissemination media of current de-velopments. On the other hand, the desire ofadvanced western countries to push up scienti-fic and technological developments particularlyin new frontiers and among the commercialenterprises to retain edge over the competi-tiveness in a fast changing technological worldcould neither afford this time gap nor ignorethe importance of "awareness" which is depen-dent upon coverage. In the Communist Blockcountries it was a question of catching up withthe west. Whatever the reason the demandwas same 1.e. speedy dissemination as well ascomprehensive coverage. Thus emphasisbegan to be stressed more and more on both"currentness· and "awareness".

Removing the Delay

Apart from the time gap between the pub-lication of a paper and its appearance in anabstracting or indexing journal there wereother delays. Two major sources of such delaywere: a) the time taken for a paper to appear inprint from the time it was submitted for publi~cation. and b) the time taken by the publicatio~whether it was a journal or an abstract ser-vice to reach the individual user. Effortswere made to minimise this to some extent. Inthe first case. the cur rent nes s was sought tobe served by innovations such as the publica-tion in advance of the list of papers which areto appear later in a journal or thoae to be readin symposia. conferences, and scientificmeetings; inclusion of review sections; issuingof short communication periodical s (letters)and the like. In the latter case. the delay,mainly due to transit. was sought to be bridgedby obtaining the microfilms of contents pagesof journals by air-mail [3]. The titles ofpape r s from these rnrc rofilms were later re-produced on paper and issued in the form ofbulletins.

Introducing Mechanised Indexes

When the dissemination problem assumedsuch a seriousness computer revolution wasjust at the corner. It was in I,}S8that H. P.Luhn tried to exploit the computer as well asthe potential Ities of titles as a solution to theproblem of speedy dissemination. This resul-ted first in the K W I C index (Keyword-in-Context Index) and late r other variations of thisconcept such as K W 0 C (Keyword-out of-Context). WAD E X (Word and Authors Index).

180

In all these cases the index is based on thekeywords in the title of a paper and producedmechanically with the help of computers. Inessence. the human effort required as input in

,the form of bibliographic skill or subjectspecialisation was far less compared to tho seof traditional indexes. The quantitative aspectof the literature ceased tobe a problem andthe time required was comparatively negligible.The uses of K W 1 C system of Luhn are sum-marized by Lewis [4] as follows:-

The principal merit of the method istimeliness. The K W I C systemlends itself to index production in theshortest possible time with a mini-mum of effort.

2 The proper objective of K W I Cindexes is to increase among theirreaders an awareness of currentresearch.

3 The usefulness of these indexes is of atemporary nature. Ideally. they' .'should be superseded •••.••••• by aninstrument prepared with care in duecourse, incorporating all those fea-tures which will enhance its usefulnessas a permanent tool of r efe r enc e r'

A full account ot these developments isgiven by Fischer [5]. It was only a matter of

time that the established abstracting servicessuch as the Chemical abstracts (1960) and theBiological abstracts (1961) took to thesemethods to bridge the time gap in issuing theirindexes.

However, these developments could notsolve the problems of information storage andretrieval as this needs a far greater biblio-graphic effort. The words in a title have theirinherent limitations to serve as the sole basisof a dissemination system. One great advan-tage of indexes based on K W I C concept was toenable them to serve as a fast and simple CASby displaying just the titles of papers with key-words in it as the access point to indicate thesubject, and thereby the relevance of the paper.without the rigors o'f using any classificationsystem or thesaurus/ subject headings. This isthe origin of CAS as it is understood in theWest. .

The term CAS is generally used in theWest to denote computer listing of titles based

Ann Lib Sci Doc

CURRENT AWARENESS SERVICE

on the keywords. This was an additional ser-vice to existing abstracting services but not asubstitute. The idea was to expose the re-search workers to as large a number of papersin a broad subject group without any time lagand without a specific research project o! anindividual in view. No rigorous bibliographicefforts were put towards the o rcani sa tion of theliterature as retrieval was never the intention.There were also a few successful attempts toprovide CAS without involving a computer.

Express Information

Another interesting development wasinitiated by VINITI of Russia under the termExpress information. This is issued weeklyin some 60 subject series. This publicationcontains abstracts or brief translations ofimportant foreign publications. In contrast tothese are the various indexing and abstractingservices issued by individual institutions, suchas library bulletins and documentation lists.These are intended to: a) bring to the notice oftheir users select items appearing in thejournal issues received in the library; b) storethe information contained in these papers inthe form of index entries and/or abstracts forretrieval at a later date; and c) meet the re-quirements of a current project. Though thesepublications do serve to some extent as a CAS,they are really meant to be dissemination pub-lications of selected papers keeping in view thespecific interest of the group or institution.Clearly browsing is not the sole intention.Invariably the entries made for the bulletin orlist are maintained in the form of a catalogueand kept growing from year to year or cumu-lated every year.

Characteristics of CAS

From the above account it will be seenthat it is very difficult to define precisely aCAS. However, certain objectives and charac-teristics relevant to a CAS can be inferred andthese are:-

It is one of the several forms of dis-. semination media;

2 It could be in the form of abstracts,index entries of titles, reports,thesis, patents, etc, or just the re-production of titl e page s of journals;

3 The speed of informing what is pub-lished is a basic requirement;

Vol 19 No4 Dee 1972

4 It is not intended to answer the speci-fic search questions of a user;

5 It should enable a user to glancethrough the literature in a broad sub-ject area;

6 The coverage is sufficiently large soas to ensure 'awareness' of whatdevelopments are taking place in agiven subject field and its relatedarea;

7 Open up the possibilities of a userencountering useful information whilehe is not specifically searching for it;

8 It should require least effort on thepart of the user to consult; and

9 It is intended for temporary use.

While considering the utility·of a CAS itis important to note to whom it is directed to.Merta (6) mentions that'there are at leastthree groups of users, whose needs are oftendifferent as far as using informal and formalways of communicating is concerned. First,there are the creative or top scientists, whotend to make more use of informal channels ofinformation including their n invisible colleges"Secondly, there are the junior or. averagescientific workers and thirdly, adm·inistrators.It is the latter two categories who depend moreon the formal channels of communication andthus can great! y benefit from CAS.

If the entries of a CAS are so selected asto match the specific interest of a user byestablishing a rapport between the user and thematcher, the CAS then becomes SelectiveDissemination of Information (SDI). Becauseof its stress on the specific interest of theuser and the selectivity, an SDI looses someof the characteristics of CAS.

In the light of the characteristics listedabove, we may now define a CAS. Perhaps,the nearest definition of a CAS is given byRanganathan [7] as "Do curne nratto n periodical.••• : ••••• 1isti~g the documents appearingdurmg the pe r iod covered, and without beingselected to suit the requirements of a particu-lar reader or of a specific topi¢ under irrve s t i-gation. This is of the nature of a generalappetiser. It endeavours to keep the clientele

181

JOSHI & NARAYANA

infor med promptly of all the nascent thoughtcreated in their fields of work and relatedfi elds!", The Insdoc list of current scientificliterature issued by Indian National ScientificDocumentation Centre, New Delhi satisfiedmost of these criteria and probably was thefirst CAS to be started anywhere in the world.Though Guha [8, 1] described the value ofInsdoc list, a CAS publication, as only transi-tory and acting as an appetiser, he later iden-tifies a CAS with that of a bibliograph1.c ser-vice" primaril y intended as a permanentrecord of work'", which is not correct. Gupta[9] supports this need for permanency in aCAS much more vehemantly.

The aims and objectives of a CAS asexpressed by Luhn (4) and also Bottle (2) .mentioned earlier more or less agree withthat of Ranganathan though they differ in themethods used to achieve the timeliness i,e.whether by computer or manual.

Indian CAS

Guha [l J has listed 61 indexing andabstracting services as CASs that existed in

the country in 1969. Since then this numbermust have increased. The claim of these ser-vices to be CAS is discussed here.

Without going into a philosphic definitionof .ncurrentness" and IIawareness" and judgingsolely from the characteristics listed above itwill be found that most of the 61, ae.rvtcee listedas CAS by Guha cannot be called as such. Butthere is no doubt that most of them if not all doserve the purpose of CAS to some extent. Indeciding whether a service is primarily a CAS,some of the important factors to be taken intoconsideration are: a) whether retrospectivesearch is intended to be a major obj ect ive; b)timeliness or periodicity; c) coverage; and d)ease with which the service could be used.

1. Objective: In most of the serviceslisted one of the primary objectives is to serveas a tool for retrospective search. Some arealso intended to meet the specific requirementsof the tlser which means the service is intendedto be an SDI service. To this extent they cam-not be classified as CAS. It is only in a fewcases such as' in the Bibliography of current!eports issued by the Bhabha Atomic ResearchCenter, Bombay, DESIDOC list issued byDefence Scientific Information & DocumentationCenter, Delhi, Anticipato!:LslocumentationJi_~

182

issued by Electronics Research & Devel oprnentEstablishment, Bangalore, and Leath~itl~service issued by the Leather Research Insti-tute, Madras, that CAS is the sole intentionand have been specifically stated so.

2. Timeliness: Out of the 61 serviceslisted, 46 are issued at frequencies varyingfrom a week to a month and the rest vary fromtwo months to six months. In the latter.case,the delay may be as long as six months to oneyear if we add up the time taken for the receiptof periodicals and also that of compilation.Viewed from this criteria these 15 servicescannot be termed as CAS. In this connectioa itis interesting to note the contention of Bottle[10] that "no quarterly publication no matte rhow rapidly produced can really be classed asa current awareness sv stern'",

3. Coverage: To make aware of what ishappening in a given subject field and its rela-ted area, an ideal CAS should cover all thedevelopments reported in that field. As this isan impossible task even for well-establishedinternational and national agencies backed byvast resources this condition cannot be expec-ted to be fulfilled by any of the services listed.But it is equally true that the services listedshouJd provide at least a significant portion ofthe published information whether His in theform of a journal article, report, patent, etc.Fortunately as obserVlid from the Bradford'slaw of scattering, a few core journals account-ing for a very high concentration of papers in agiven subject field makes a significant coverageof a subject possible 'in a CAS. This has beenfurther confirmed by the studies on the sourcesof abstracts of papers covered by abstractingjournals such as the Chemical abstracts, thePhysics abstracts and others [11]. Henc.e witha. pro pe r=aeIecti on of source (leaving thejournals in the peripheral zones) it is possibleto achieve a fairly good coverage.

However, it seems that most of the ser-vices listed are restricting the coverage onlyto journals received in their respective libra-ries. This is perhaps justified on the grounds':)flimitation of resources and by placing theemphasis on selectivity. Even then it is notknown to what extent the articles from thejournals received are covered. At least in afew cases, the coverage is restricted to theitems of intere st to the projects in ha.nd as theobjective of them has been to rneet. the specificrequirements as against the general coverageto provide browsing.

Ann Lib Sci Doc

CURRENT AWARENESS SERVICE

4. Ease of browsing: Arrangement ofentries has an important bearing in fulfillingthe objectives of a CAS. Most commonly usedpractices are of following types:-

Arranged according to K W I C con-cept;

2 Grouped under broad subjects;

3 Entered under controlled vocabulary;

4 Classified according to a scheme ofclassification; and

5 Contents pages rep:r:oduced.,

Each one of the above patterns has cer-tain advantages as well as disadvantages. Re-production of title pages will restrict thebrowsing value and also coverage as a useris invariably inclined to see only the journalsof his direct subject interest. The classifiedarrangement takes away the direct approach tothe articles, and also demands a greater efforton the part of the user. 1£the arrangement isfollowed to depth classification it is bound todestroy the ease of glancing which is one of theessential requirements of a CAS, irrespectiveof the other merits claimed for it. The use ofcontrolled vocabulary though provides an easyapproach; involves rigorous discipline ofcoding the information and also insertion ofcross references. As such these three arrange-ments though better suited for organising aliterature file for later retrieval do not makethe browsing easy. This leaves only arrange-ments based on K W I C concept and broadgroupings as the best possible arrangementsfor an effective CAS. Further they save thetime at the production 1evel as well as at theusers' level, being easy for reference. Theyalso facilitate browsing. It is observed thatonly 18 out of 61 services are reported as beingarranged under broad subject headings.

Evaluating the existing services fromthese criteria it is concluded that most of theservices fail to qualify as CAS.

Is CAS Necessary?

Any discussion of the CAS in the Indiancontext raises several questions such as: Isthere a real need felt by the scientists andtechnologists in India for a service whose soleobjective is CAS? Is there any relationshipbetween the present level of the technologicaland scientific research in the country and theCAS? 1£there is a need, to what extent it has

Vol 19 No 4 Dec 1972

to fulfil the criteria mentioned earlier to beeffective? What use is made of the existingirrt ar-nat ion a.l CAS? Is there any relationshipbet';ee~ the abstracting services and a CAS?What is the role of national documentationcenters and that of individual libraries in rela-tion:to CAS? All these questions need furtherstudy. 'INSl')OC might be in a position to throwsome light at least on some of these questio.nsas it had carried out a study on the Insdoc l istof current scientific literature before itceased.

1£the lists issued by individual librariesfail to serve solely as CAS, what then aretheir purposes ? They do not seem to have aClear Gut single objective but cornb ine to se ~veas a CAS tool, inforrrlation storage and r e t r ie -".val media, and to some extent ev eri as an SDf.These services have a valuable role to pl ay andsome of the user studies have proved this. Theimportance of these are bound to increase incombating what Butler [12] calls "ignoranceexplosion" ~

It has.become difficult to identify thesepublications issued by individual libraries by aclear cut terminology. Though n Local docu-mentation l ist " and CAS are generally the termsused they do not convey clearly the functions ofthese lists. Perhaps a more precise termwhich covers these lists and their functionswould be International di.ssemination of infor-mation.

Acknowl edgement s

Thanks are due to the Dean, Institute ofArmament Technology, Poona-25 for grantingpermission to publish this paper.

REFERENCES

[1] GUHA B: Indian Current AwarenessServices. Unesco Bull Lib 1968, 22(2).73-81.

[2] BOTTLE R T: Title Indexes as AlertingServices in the Chemical and LifeSciences. JAm Soc Inf Sci 1970, 21(1).16-21.

[3] PARTHASARATHY S: In Ranganathan S R(Ed.). Doc urne ntat lon and its Facets.Asia Publishing, Bornba v 1963, Sec. D3.

183

JOSHI & NARAYANA

[4] LEWIS R F: "KWIC - Is it Quick?"Bull Medical Lib Assn 1964. 52. 142-47.

[5] FISCHER M: The KWIC Index Concept:a retrospective view. Am Doc 1966.17(2). 57-60.

[6] ClBA FOUNDA'IION: Communication inScience: Documentation and Automation.Churchill. London 1967, p7l.

[7] RANGANATHAN S R (Ed.): Documenta ,tion and its Facets. Asia Publishing.Bornbay 1963. Sec,B3.

[8] GUHA B: In Ranganathan SR. ed.Dc curnenta t ion and its facets. AsiaPublishing. Bornbay , 1953 - Sec Fl.

184

[9] GUPTA A K: Local Documentation Listand Readers Requirements. DRTCSeminar No.4. 1966. p411-41.

[10] BOTTLE R T: A user's Assessment ofCurrent Awareness Service. J Doc 1965,21(3). 177-89.

[11] FREEMAN R R: Techniques for Publi-cation and Distribution of Info r mat ion ,In Cuadra, C A, ed: Annual Review ofInform. tion Science and 'I ecbnology.Interscience, New York 1967, 2, p339.

[12] BUTLER J N: Information Pollution andthe Ignorance Explosion. Chernrech1972, 139-41.

Ann Lib Bel Doc