This paper presents the results of a study designed to find out what happens when librarians respond to enquiries from users of public libraries. The limited nature of the interaction commonly observed calls into question the rhetoric of public library ‘service for all’. Only those who have been able to articulate clearly their information needs in terms which relate to the library's organization of resources are likely to receive a completely satisfactory response.
Social scientists have long expressed an intensive interest in the conceptual bases of their disciplines. Compilers of subject heading lists and thesauri also have emphasized the significance of concepts for documentary retrieval purposes. How were these different approaches reconciled and presented in retrieval aids produced for social sciences? To answer this question a comparative analysis of subject heading lists and thesauri, based upon a 10 per cent page sample of each work, was undertaken to collect data relating to word/concept relationships and concept structuring; 18 subject heading lists and 20 thesauri were examined. Analysis revealed that retrievalists, despite the known distinctiveness of the social sciences, produced subject heading lists and thesauri with distinguishing characteristics little different from those found in similar ‘tools’ in the sciences and technologies. The reasons for these unexpected similarities are explored.
The publication of articles by Scandinavian authors is analysed using the Social Science Citation Index. An online search in SSCI revealed a stagnation of article production from the Scandinavian countries during the late 1970s. This may be due to an increase of applied research, financed by non-traditional research councils. Economics is the discipline that produces the largest number of articles in non-Scandinavian journals. Sociology is much more oriented to a Scandinavian public. There is also a tendency that Scandinavian journals, even when they are in English, are mainly cited by other Nordic periodicals. These data suggest that measures should be taken to stimulate basic research and international diffusion of Scandinavian social science research.
