Libraries, Archives and lnformation Technology: An Annotated Bibliography, 1970-1990. Part 1. Edited by B.M. Gupta. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1991. 454 p. Handbook of Libraries, Archives and Information Centres in India, 11. ISBN 8–1–851–79689. Price not given.
In its output of library and information science (LIS) literature in English, India ranks third in the world, after the United States and Britain. From time to time efforts have been made to bring this output under bibliographic control [1]. The work under review crowns all previous efforts. It is the first of three bibliographic volumes to appear in the monumental Handbook of Libraries and Information Centres in India, a series that began in 1985 and will be completed with the bibliography in volume 13.
The terra firma of the bibliography comprises 2,957 entries from about 200 serials, 150 conference proceedings, and 50 books, all published in 1970-1990. Most of the entries are in English. Coverage extends to literature published in India, about India wherever published, and by Indians whatever their country of residence. Selected writings about South Asia are also included. The bibliography is not comprehensive within its intended scope (a number of missing publications were noted), and it sometimes goes beyond its scope by including such categories as indexes to secondary periodicals in science and technology. Two core Indian newsletters, Library Today and NISSAT Newsletter, were not scanned.
Entries are grouped chapters by 16 broad subjects: acquisition and book selection, archives, bibliographical control, biography of librarians, cataloguing, circulation, classification, collection development, document delivery, exchange, reference, information seeking behaviour, interlibrary loan, librarianship, librarianship as a profession, and management. Appropriate subheadings appear in each chapter. With 617 (21%) entries in the area of classification, it is evident that India is still the bastion of classification studies. Archives has 539 entries, librarianship 357. Only 10 items are found under interlibrary loan, a narrow and old-fashioned heading. Full bibliographic details are given, and about 80% of the entries have abstracts.
There are indexes by author, publisher, general subjects, and organizations as subjects. In the appendices there is a list of 175 Indian publishers of LIS material, a directory of about 100 Indian LIS periodicals (the most complete of its kind), and a list of monographs published from 1980 to 1990 arranged by publisher (publishers A to I only in this volume).
This imposing work is a reliable record of LIS publication in India, constituting a de facto national bibliography of the professional literature.
1. Most recently in R.J. Prytherch and M.P. Satija, “Indian Library and Information Science Literature: A Guide to Its Coverage and Control,” Libri 36-3 (September 1986): 163–186.
M.P. Satija teaches at Gur Nanak Deve University, in Amritsar, India.