Michael Wise

The Workshop [1] brought together paper presenters from Fiji, India, Nigeria, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, each of whom described the state awareness of these materials in the very diverse conditions that govern information dissemination in the South Pacific region, South Asia, Nigeria, Southern Africa and China.

Although speakers did not overlap significantly in their papers, common factors were identified, and the following topics were considered in general discussion by participants:

1. That there is a generally prevailing disinterest on the part of governments to information provision. This is often ambivalent on the part of policy makers, and affects the provision of resources to develop journal publishing. In turn it affects journal content, because authors are unwilling to offer their writings to journals that have erratic patterns of publishing, distribution, indexing and other factors that affect recognition by users.
2. The amount of use made, outside the regions in which they originate, of information networks, and the reasons why they are not used more widely.
3. The ability of information providers, world-wide to acquire Third World journals. How many journal supply agencies will accept orders for so‑called local publications? They work fairly effectively North to South, but not so generally in the opposite direction.
4. The use and effectiveness of finding tools, and of interlending in each region.
5. Costs of operating and using information networks, especially for interlending.
6. How to indicate the way forward, in practical terms, for Third World libraries to access Third World information.

In his paper on the southern Africa region, whose information supply is dominated by the preponderance of the publishing output, and developed information and library services of South Africa, Peter Lor surveyed 10 countries (including Portuguese‑speaking Angola and Mozambique), based on a disappointing response of slightly under 50 percent. Not surprisingly he found that there is a stronger flow of journals and use outward from South Africa to the other countries of the region, than vice versa; while there is least awareness of publications between other neighbour countries.

Reasons for deficiencies in awareness and supply are ranked as:

1. Finance for purchase of materials from outside a country;
2. Poor bibliographic control (therefore unaware of existence of journals elsewhere);
3. Short life‑span and irregularity of publication;
4. Difficult to communicate with publishers, i.e., to get a business‑like response to correspondence;
5. Compounded by problems with postal service and telecommunications;
6. Language barrier (Angola, Mozambique);
7. Political obstacles, such as bannings, closures of institutions, and other interruptions to continuity of research and publication.

It is known that a number of libraries, for these and other reasons, do not attempt to obtain journals from other countries of the region. Lor noted further deterrents to attendance at conferences, and later to acquisition of their proceedings as:

1. Lack of awareness of conferences as they occur;
2. Delays in publication, or eventual non‑publication of proceedings;
3. Limited circulation and availability;
4. High cost.

Finally, in criticism of documentation and interlending systems, he pin‑points:

1. Slow and laborious operation of the system;
2. Lack of response from libraries to which requests have been sent;
3. Difficulties in locating holdings;
4. High cost of interlending (Third World librarians are not alone, however, in deploring the spiraling cost of British Library loans);
5. Poor fill rates;
6. Copyright restrictions.

In conclusion he sees the need for revitalizing national documentation centres, and updating of existing national databases. This should desirably proceed alongside the use of CD‑ROM for publication of bibliographic control tools. Regional documentation centres and databases should logically supply data to international services, thus increasing awareness of Third World research and publication.

The development of CD‑ROM and its initial application in Africa has tended to increase the frustration of users, whose awareness of literature, world‑wide, that they cannot obtain increased, and serves merely to emphasize the inadequacy of document supply. Their problems may be alleviated by initiating full‑text databases, and by improving networking between libraries.

Warning against over‑ambitious and sophisticated multinational cooperative efforts, which entail too great a degree of agreement, on too many matters, by too many parties, he observed that technological innovation alone cannot solve the present problems.

Much of Lor's theme was present by inference in the presentation by Subbiah Arunachalam, in consideration of the much greater volume of research and publication in South Asia. He deplored the disloyalty of authors who publish by preference in the First World, while admitting the obvious advantages to be gained—great awareness of their work as a result of being recorded, indexed and accessible. Deterrents to publishing at home often include the poor impact of lower quality publishing (although the standard of Indian production, through the widespread use of desk‑top publishing is undergoing a remarkable improvement). However, the lack of professionalism of authors, editors and distributors are lowering factors.

Approximately 68 percent of all Indian serials that are recorded by the New Delhi office of the Library of Congress are published in English. The LC Office has been praised as the most important source of information internationally about South Asian publication in the late 20th century. Despite its excellent coverage of journal publications, the evidence of use that can be gained from occasional literature surveys suggests that a western bias, with a tendency to discount the value of research and publication in this and other Third World regions prevails in the more developed countries.

Harry Campbell's paper on China draws attention to the official recognition by the country's network of state supported scientific and technical information institutes that there is a discrepancy between the large volume of papers published each year in China, and small number that are cited in foreign information sources.

Positive steps to heighten awareness in the West have included forming joint ventures with foreign review services, such as the supply of English language abstracts of Chinese language papers that are judged insignificant in China, to the major English language abstracting services, such as Engineering Index.

Regarding the setting up of computerized information data bases and networks, advisers and consultants from abroad have noted that while programming staff have extremely high competence, their effectiveness is reduced by authoritarian administrative attitudes, which provide inappropriate software and methods. Consequently the country's potential in information dissemination is unlikely to be realized rapidly.

Donita Simmons of Fiji spoke about a scene that is very different from that of South Asia or China. The South Pacific region is geographically huge, with a small and widely scattered population and a low publication rate. Information gathering and dissemination has been maximized with the development of the Pacific Information Centre; it is acquiring items and making bibliographic records so that they shall be accessible to users. The South Pacific Research Register contained 600 entries for the period of 4,297 serial titles that originate in South Asia.

Lukman Diso's paper on the Nigerian situation points to low production standards, at all stage of journal production, from authorship and evaluation of materials to printing and distribution. Bibliographic control has far to go before it can be regarded as reasonably complete, and networked databases do not exist.

A partial explanation of the rapid rise and decline of journals intended for publication of research papers, and of the absence of bibliographic records and proper distribution may be found in the recent paper by Ifidon. [2] He comments on the prevalence of group publishing by academics who finance the publishing of new journals in order to advance their publication score, but generally have no interest in their continuance after the immediate objective has been attained. Their research is too frequently of very limited and local application, and therefore unacceptable to most established journals of international repute. Thus, journal frequency is rarely maintained, becoming increasingly irregular after a few issues, when several numbers may be merged into a single issue. Such is often the sign of approaching demise of a journal. This goes far to explain the reluctance of information providers elsewhere to place advance subscriptions for titles that are quite likely never to materialize, and of international indexing and abstracting services to decline to include titles that have unusually erratic publication patterns.

Speakers made reference, en passant, to the semi‑publication of conference papers. By this means, rather than in edited proceedings, papers given a limited distribution, and immediately enter the fugitive category of grey literature. A fairly lengthy review of the place of grey literature in African information provision exists in a subsequent and unpublished paper by Sturges [3] and can be read as a commentary on Third World access to its own information sources.

  Summary of Discussion

1. Lack of awareness of the existence of journals is perpetuated by:
   1. non‑use of ISSN's;
   2. reluctance of serials agents to accept orders for Third World journals;
   3. poor distributions and marketing of journals by their originators;
   4. poor bibliographic control;
   5. omission by international abstracting and indexing services.
2. Because of general lack of access to computerized information networks, and of purchasing power to acquire internationally published indexing services, there is still a need for printed national and regional bibliographies in the Third World.
3. International dominance of information in the Third World is perpetuated by the ease of communication, and access to information in, and originating from First World sources. This has led to an assumption by the majority of information users that less importance attaches to information from the Third World, unless it has been published in First World outlets; consequently Third World information sources are under‑used by outsiders, and their financial base weakened.

  Conclusion and Recommendations for Action

Having identified the six topics set out at the beginning of this article as being of common interest throughout the diverse regions that comprise the Third World, the members of the Workshop recommended to IFLA, through the Core Programmes of UAP and the Co‑ordination Board of the Division of Regional activities that: working at regional levels throughout IFLA (i.e., Africa; Asia and Oceania; Latin America) there should be prioritization for action as appropriate on the following topics:

1. Initiate action to improve the regularity of journal production;
2. General national/regional periodical indexes;
3. Rectify the factors that hinder regular compilation and publication of national/regional bibliographies;
4. By co‑operative activity, to work to overcome the disadvantage of continuing dependence on outside finance for bibliographic and document access projects;
5. Noted that translation between major languages remains a continuing obstacle to effective technical communication.

  References

1. Workshop on Access to Third World Journals and Conference Proceedingse; rapporteur Michael Wise. Boston Spa, England: International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Programme for Universal Availability of Publications, 1993. ISBN 0‑7123‑2091‑1

2. Sam E. Ifidon, “Publishing of Library Journals in Nigeria,” Third World Libraries 3‑2 (Spring 1993): 45‑49.

3. Paul Sturges, “Using Grey Literature in Informal Information Service in Africa,” (unpublished paper, 1993?). Available from Department of Information and Library Studies, Loughborough University, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, U.K.

 About the Author

Michael Wise teaches in the Department of Library Science, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. He was formerly a lecturer and librarian at the College of Librarianship Wales. He is editor of Focus on International and Comparative Librarianship.

© 1994 Dominican University

Citation

Wise, Michael “Access to Third World Journals and Conference Proceedings: Report on a Workshop at the 59th IFLA General Conference, Barcelona, 1993, Volume 5, Number 1 (Fall 1994).