The Subject Index to Periodicals, 1939

Abstract

HOW seldom do those engaged in developing a new idea for the national effort pause to consider the patient drudgery expended daily in the production of the bibliographical guides whereby to cull the information recorded about that idea. Still less often do they inquire whether these bibliographical aids to research are organized to provide the whole of the relative information recorded. We realize the necessity of finding the best brains for war-time research; but we fail to understand the basic value of a complete index to scientific and technical knowledge. Nor do we appreciate the facts that such an index is not to hand, and that we are wasting time and human lives in repeating work already on record, if we could but find it. The bibliographical work and its organization are accepted as a matter of course. Nothing less than their sudden death seems likely to awaken the necessary interest; though, in wartime, special arrangements have to be made to prevent this calamity, while completeness of the work becomes especially needful.

The Subject Index to Periodicals, 1939

Issued by the Library Association. Pp. xi + 270. (London: The Library Association, 1940.) 77s.