College and Research Libraries By L A U R A I. M A K E P E A C E and L O R E N E M . A S H T O N The Experiment Station Record, 1 9 3 3 - 4 6 ' Miss Makepeace is executive librarian, and Miss Ashton, documents librarian, Colorado A. M. College. THE U n i t e d States D e p a r t m e n t of A g r i -culture discontinued the publication of the Experiment Station Record at the end of 1946. T h i s abstracting service was a valuable one to all land-grant college li- braries, and its discontinuance was a b l o w to their reference service. Because it had been an essential tool and it was believed that some of its material was not abstracted in any other publications, the writers de- cided to make a study of its entries. T w o issues of the Record f o r each year, l 9 3 3 through 1946, were analyzed f o r ( 1 ) subjects covered, ( 2 ) up-to-dateness of ab- stracting, ( 3 ) ratio of foreign publications abstracted, and difference in lapse of time between publication and abstracting of f o r - eign and domestic material. Subjects Covered It was f o u n d that the Record covered the f o l l o w i n g subjects: x. S o i l s a n d f e r t i l i z e r s 2. A g r i c u l t u r a l b o t a n y 3. G e n e t i c s 4 . F i e l d c r o p s 5. H o r t i c u l t u r e 6. F o r e s t r y 7. D i s e a s e s o f p l a n t s 8. E c o n o m i c z o o l o g y a n d e n t o m o l o g y 9. A n i m a l p r o d u c t i o n 10. D a i r y f a r m i n g a n d d a i r y i n g 1 Paper presented at meeting of A g r i c u l t u r a l Libraries Section, A . C . R . L . , June 18, 1948, Atlantic C i t y , N.J. i r . V e t e r i n a r y m e d i c i n e 1 2 . A g r i c u l t u r a l a n d b i o l o g i c a l c h e m i s t r y 1 3 . F o o d s a n d h u m a n n u t r i t i o n 14. A g r i c u l t u r a l e n g i n e e r i n g 1 5 . A g r i c u l t u r a l e c o n o m i c s 16. R u r a l s o c i o l o g y 1 7 . A g r i c u l t u r a l m e t e o r o l o g y 18. A g r i c u l t u r a l a n d h o m e e c o n o m i c s e d u c a - t i o n 19. H o m e m a n a g e m e n t a n d e q u i p m e n t 20. T e x t i l e s a n d c l o t h i n g T h e first eleven of these subjects deal with some phase of biology, and it was f o u n d that Biological Abstracts entered practically all of the biological publications abstracted in the Experiment Station Rec- ord whether periodicals, books, or docu- m e n t s ; it also had more foreign entries than the Record. In the later years it is as up-to-date as the Record. Chemical Abstracts covers agricultural and biological chemistry adequately, and Nutrition Abstracts f u l l y covers the sub- ject of f o o d s and human nutrition. T h u s , the first thirteen subjects f o r m e r l y ab- stracted services by the Record are w e l l covered by other abstracting services. T h i s is not true of the last seven subjects. T h e Engineering Index lists articles on agricultural engineering and annotates most of these. H o w e v e r , these annotations are usually brief and indicate the scope of ma- terial covered but do not c o m m e n t on re- sults. Books on agricultural economics and rural sociology are reviewed in journals on these subjects. Rural Sociology lists some documents but no periodicals, and omits 316 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH. LIBRARIES many essential documents. T h e journals on economics list neither periodical articles nor government documents. W e have been unable to find any ab- stracting service which covers agricultural meteorology, agricultural and home econom- ics education, and home management and equipment. T h e chemical aspect of textiles and clothing is covered in Chemical Ab- stracts, but no other phases are dealt with in any service which w e examined. In 1938 H a r o l d W . H a y d e n , a student in the Department of Library Science, U n i - versity of M i c h i g a n , made a study c o m - paring the Experiment Station Record and the Agricultural Index, and in 1940 another student, Genevieve A . Pohle, continued this study. T o g e t h e r they covered the period f r o m January 1936 through June 1937 " t o determine the completeness of each and the amount of duplication in services." M i s s Pohle f o u n d that only 10 per cent of the journals abstracted in the Experi- ment Station Record are indexed in the A gricultural Index. T h e Experiment Sta- tion Record is selective in its abstracting and covers a much w i d e r range of subjects. Since one is an abstracting service and the other an indexing service, the t w o publica- tions complement rather than duplicate each other. Up -to-Dateness of Abstracting A g o o d abstracting service cannot expect to list entries of publications issued this month or last. It does a good j o b if it can enter material within six months of date of publication. T h e abstracting in the Record appeared to be as nearly up-to-date as that in other abstracting services. Foreign Material T h e r e was no apparent difference be- tween the date of entries of foreign and domestic publications. Foreign entries over this period varied w i d e l y because the present study covered prewar, w a r , and postwar years. T h a t part of the study is not con- sidered significant. Conclusions It was f o u n d that about 12 per cent of the entries in the Experiment Station Rec- ord w e r e not adequately abstracted in any service that was examined. It covered docu- ments and periodicals published in the United States very adequately, and also en- tered many foreign publications. It also abstracted many books briefly. It did not cover foreign material as completely as does Biological Abstracts and Chemical Ab- stracts. A subject abstracting service naturally covers its field far more completely than a general one which tries to cover all sub- jects pertaining to all phases of agriculture and home economics. It is recommended that the Experiment Station Record be revived or that a n e w publication be started which w o u l d abstract nonbiological, nonchemical publications. Such a publication should be much smaller and less expensive to issue than the Record had been. OCTOBER, 1948 35 7