Provides background on the establishment of the Congressional Research Service, focusing on the growth of reference services and special librarianship during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The contributions of Melvil Dewey and Charles McCarthy, as well as legislative reference work in the Library of Congress, are discussed. (10…

A technique developed to collect statistics on reference and information services and library-staff time utilization is described. This technique consists of taking continual inventory of actifities and recording them on a specially designed service record card. (5 references) (Author/NH)

A brief description of reference, bibliography, preservation, administration, and staffing for a picture collection. (PF)

PEARL (Periodicals Automation, Rand Library) was established as an automated periodicals control system. Its objective is to facilitate the precessing, routing and control of the library's periodical subscriptions and holdings. The system became operational in November 1969. The manual Kardex System was completely eliminated in December 1970. (17…

The progress, potential, and problems of a fee-based, custom designed library research service for business and industry called INFORM are discussed. (JB)

The Office of Standard Reference Data surveyed by mail 2,700 selected members of the Special Libraries Association to check their knowledge and use of NSRDS publications. The survey revealed that distribution and dissemination procedures of NSRDS publications need improvement. (Author/NH)

The computer search service provided to faculty by the University of New Mexico General Library is described. (PF)

When a small agriculture research library initiated computer-based retrospective literature searches, there was a significant increase in the library's interlibrary loan activity. Results of a study to determine the extent to which interlibrary loan activity was affected by the implementation of this service are reported. (JPF)

Retrieval terminals have been placed in four public libraries in Northern California to provide access to sixteen different data bases. The first year of this two-year experiment is described, and some of the technical, organizational, and economic aspects of the study are reviewed. (Author)

To provide graduate students with an in-depth reference and information service, the School of International Affairs has appointed a "librarian without a library" whose primary duty is to put the students in touch with the university's library resources and the diverse sources of information available in the national capital area and…

Rectangular Venn diagramming for planning searches and for use as worksheets that can be revised during on-line searching is described. (Author)

Most municipalities do not have bibliographic control and checklists of their publications. Because of the complexity of the subject, and major obstacles in locating materials of interest to their clientele, reference librarians need to understand the benefits of documents and locate sources for them. (10 references) (Author/DH)

Two services provided by the Boeing Co. Aerospace Group Library-Literature searches and reference/publication identification activities-were evaluated by written and oral surveys of the library's users. The survey technique and cost savings reported by the two studies are discussed. (2 references) (Author/NH)

Some titles to implement the clippings files and provide quick research sources for information which might not be available in other reference tools in the library are suggested. (Author/AB)

Discusses problems of increasing numbers of databases (standardization, vendor contracts, training, restricted access, duplicate citations), noting implications for change in librarian's role as supplier of decision making data (education, users groups, search aids, information brokers, collection evaluation, reference and source databases,…