Social Sczence Information Studies i 198 11, I ( 19 l-200)

!C 1981 Butterworths

BOOK REVIEWS

M. B. Line. Towards the improvement of social science information systems: overview of research carried out 1971-1975. Bath University, 1980. 110 pp. (Design of information systems in the social sciences. Research reports series A no. 7.) BLR SC D report 5527. ISBN 900843 5 1 9

E4.50

For the United Kingdom serious and systematic investigation of the information practices and attitudes of social scientists may be dated from as recently as 1967, the beginning of the INFROSS’ project. The tentative generalizations essayed upon the basis of this pioneering work have since become part of the intellectual stock-in-trade, even the mythology, of information scientists. The exposure of social scientists as reluctant, indifferent, unsystematic, users of the established secondary services (when they used secondary services at all !) gave rise to the essentially optimistic and practical view that such services could be improved in ways that would better their use by. social scientists. The DISISS’ investigators set out to examine a number of major issues deriving from this proposition.

In this, the final report, Maurice Line, the DISISS project head, summarizes the main findings and considers some of the implications of four years work previously presented to the public in 11 separate research reports between 1973 and 1979. Quite properly, given the research design and methodologies employed, the reported findings are hedged around with limiting qualifications. In certain instances the extent of these qualifications give rise to nagging reservations regarding the utility of the end products. For example, existing secondary services in criminology were found to be deficient when assessed against technical criteria such as coverage, overlap, time-lag, etc. Having come to this conclusion the problem of generalizing usefully for the social sciences presents itself. The limitations of the studies are made clear-‘whether these results are typical of the social sciences in general could only be established by further tests in other disciplines’. Further, ‘secondary services have different audiences and objectives, so that comparisons between them such as those undertaken by DISISS are somewhat unfair. Ideally every service should be judged according to its own audience and objectives’. The considered conclusions from this aspect of the project’s work is that ‘at best, there do appear to be serious weaknesses in some areas at least’. Clearly, neither the qualifications nor the conclusion can be faulted. However, they are precisely the kinds of qualifications and conclusions that could have been formulated, given that only two subject areas were to be examined, before the investigation got under way. Whether the researchers held different expectations when they designed the research project is not made clear.

This is not the only example of a research design flaw. The studies intended as contributions to the optimization of secondary services in the social sciences are open to the same criticism. Although, on the basis of the work, it was possible to suggest that ‘the optimum number of entries per issue appeared to be between 100 and 200’, that ‘the ideal frequency would appear to be slightly less often than three-weekly’, and that ‘there was a clear preference for abstracts over keyword-enriched titles’, it has to be remembered that such ‘findings apply only to Geo-Abstracts, and the study did not . . . include costs, essential to any true

192 Book reviews

optimization model’. Which raises the question-what is the value of a patently ‘untrue’ optimization model? If an understanding of the optimization process was the aim why did the research proceed on the described lines, with the certainty of results that might have something to say about user preferences but nothing of value in terms of optimization in practical terms which service producers could relate to?

The DISISS project is fully redeemed by its work on literature growth and citations. Line’s retrospective assessment establishes the description of the size, growth and composition of social science literature as the product of the most meticulous study of its kind. There can be no quarrelling with the view that, in this area, the data gathered and interpreted by DISISS represent a substantial and needed contribution to our knowledge. Inevitably, the present picture ‘has evidently been somewhat overtaken by events’, but these data, apart from informing us of the scale and nature of the collective problem confronting secondary services producers in the ‘seventies, also remind us of how little was known of the literature situation pre-DISISS and how insecurely based were the common generalizations regarding literature growth. There is every reason to support the author’s proposal that work of this type should be repeated at regular intervals so that the scale, detail and direction of change may be plotted for practical and general investigative purposes.

The author’s dismissive assessment of past citation analyses as ‘either practically useless or positively misleading’ may be unfashionably blunt; it is, nonetheless, difficult to rebut. Certainly, few past studies compare favourably, either in terms of scale or rigour of analysis, with the work carried out by DISISS on 59,000 citations in the social science literature. The results are significant. ‘Most secondary services in the social sciences appear to be seriously deficient in the range of forms of material they cover, in the number and possibly the selection of materials they cover, in the sub.ject spread of material of possible relevance and probably also in coverage of foreign language material and of material published in many other countries.’ What should be done, what can be done, about the situation?

The general answer, of course, is implicit in the orientation of the research. Improve the secondary services. How ? By defining intended audience, deciding on broad or narrow coverage of subject, identifying material to be covered, etc. Basic, even elementary, advice which might well be thought presumptuous were it not for the fact that so many secondary services give little evidence of having thought through the various issues and problems associated with the design of effective information systems. The advice offered is unexceptional, but owes little to the views of social scientists themselves, perhaps because DISISS investigators were doubtful whether such opinions would add much to their own findings and professional understanding. An attitude neatly summarized in the sentence- ‘people do not always like what is best for them; nor do they always know what is best for them (as is probable in this case), or use it even when they know’. True enough, but nonetheless, an ultimately corrupting belief for information system designers? Importantly, the author is concerned not simply with the performance of individual information services. The wider concern embraces the collective performance of what may be termed loosely the bibliographical system. The author’s prescriptions in this area seem, to this reviewer at least, to derive from tidy-minded administrative preconceptions rather than directly from the gath- ered evidence. The fragmented, small-scale, nature of the existing biblio- graphical system, in the author’s assessment, argues the need for rationalization.

Book reviews 193

In this context the idea appears to imply large-scale, or larger scale, operations based upon a centralization of bibliographical effort. The argument, certainly in the British context, is convincing. There are other views to be considered, however. For example, Swanson’s (1980) view of bibliographical progress achieved through competition and the decisions of the market-place’ might accord more closely with the views of our current political masters? Also, might it be that the current, unrationalized, state of the secondary services is a straight- forward indication that social scientists are content with their bibliographical lot because such services satisfy both their needs and demands at appropriate levels? DISISS offers little evidence to the contrary.

As might be expected the report concludes with ideas for future research in areas of social science information. The ideas deserve support not simply for their intrinsic research worth but because their acceptance could assist profoundly in developing the idea and practice of research as a continuous and related activity in which findings are elaborated and built upon, re-tested at intervals and shaped into a coherent body of knowledge contributing fruitfully to the theory and practice of information work. That such ideas should emerge from a reading of this report supports the view that the DISISS project was concerned with fundamental issues and that these, to stimulate discussion, have been boldly presented by Maurice Line. No criticism can detract from the magnitude of both achievements. We must all hope that this final, summary, report, represents not simply the end of a major, even though flawed, research project, but the inspiration for further work.

Norman Roberts

REFERENCES

’ INFROSS-Investigation into information requirements of the social sciences. * DISISS-Design of information systems in the social sciences. y Swanson, D. R. (1980). Libraries and the growth of knowledge. In: The role ofLibraries in

the Growth of Knowledge. (D. R. Swanson, ed.), 112-134. University of Chicago Press.

A. Kent and T. J. Galvin, editors. The structure and governance of library networks. New York: Marcel Dekker Inc. S. Fr. 84.00

The publication of these Proceedings of the 1978 Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, co-sponsored by the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and the University of Pittsburgh is most apposite in view of the recently published report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Education, Science and the Arts & Information Storage and Retrieval in the British Library service which recommends:

The 19 78 Pittsburgh Conference was planned to provide input for those attending

‘that the Government set up as a matter of urgency a Standing Commission representative of the wide range of interests concerned with the provision of information particularly by telematic means, to examine on a continuing basis the problems of developing a national information network, to formulate national requirements, to relate them to international develop- ments to investigate possible solutions, and to make proposals for their implementation by appropriate bodies.’