ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Editors Meet at IFLA

The editors of more than twenty-five documentation, library and archive journals met at the International Federation of Library Association’s Conference in Grenoble, France, to discuss ways to foster greater cooperation among the world’s library journals. One specific objective of the meeting was to follow up the symposium of editors, sponsored by UNESCO, which had been held May 16-19, 1972. Among the topics discussed at the IFLA meeting were international cooperation among editors of library journals, technical improvement, uniformity of bibliographical references, formats of transliteration systems, the content of authors abstracts, and the feasibility of publishing news of IFLA activities in national periodicals.

There seemed to be general agreement among the attendees that most editors and authors could benefit from the establishment of a clearinghouse. The clearinghouse would function as a communication link between authors and editors, as authors often do not know where to submit their manuscripts for publication. (CRL receives annually as many as ten misdirected manuscripts.) Inquiries from authors and publishers could be channeled through the clearinghouse to the most appropriate publication. UNESCO officials indicated that they would move to implement the clearinghouse concept.

The current inadequacies of library abstracting and indexing tools was also discussed. It is estimated by FID that over 700 journals in library science and documentation are not published. However, many significant publications are still not included in any of the. major abstracting tools. UNESCO would like to encourage countries now lacking either an indexing or abstracting service to determine a way to cover the literature of their country. For some geographical areas, regional arrangements might prove to be more practical than a series of national plans. ■■