Members may be interested to learn of a new bibliographic service for the social sciences which is published by Routledge and compiled by the British Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics. The new publication results from a merger of the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences with the London Bibliography of the Social Sciences and the result combines enhanced current awareness possibilities with a permanent information and research tool.
The new periodical title is International Current Awareness Services. Monthly parts are published in four parallel subject areas - Anthropology, Economics, Political Science and Sociology. Each main area covers related disciplines so that Sociology, for instance, includes criminology, human geography, industrial relations, law and society, social administration, social and industrial psychology, social policy and women and society. Readers are thus able to gain early knowledge of important publications in their field, possibly before the items noted have reached the library shelves.
ICAS scans an extremely wide selection of the world’s journal literature. At least 120,000 articles a year are scanned and access is given to literature in thirty languages with each entry accompanied by English Language title translation and identification of any summaries in English. Full contents listing of journal parts is provided, together with reports of book reviews, making rapidly available information on monographs. A new feature is the indexing of important papers in monographic works of edited collections and there is coverage of significant speeches, reports, editorials and letters.
Each monthly publication is divided into two sections. The first covers contents listings of journal parts, book reviews, monographs and papers from edited collections. The second section contains a subject index which lists under keywords the titles of all individual works listed in the main section and there is also a placename index. The standardised formats and clear typesetting make for very easy use.
ICAS is a very ambitious project which brings together the resources of specialist librarians within the University of London and a network of overseas correspondents in social science institutions, publishers and libraries throughout the world. The editors aim to continuously incorporate improvements in coverage and indexing. Undoubtedly this new venture must rank as a major event in the bibliography of the social sciences. Members seeking further information may obtain this from the editor, Caroline Lane, at Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London, EC4P 4EE.
Bob Chester