scientificconference

Papers and
Proceedings 1.

contents, injuence, value, availability

S C I E N T I F IC C O N F E R E N C E P A P E R S
A N D PROCEEDINGS
SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE
PAPERS
A N D PROCEEDINGS

Contents, injuence, value,

availability

br
The International Federation for Documentation .

Reprinted from Unesco bulletin for libraries

vol. XVI, no. 3, May-June and July-August 1962

UNESCO
 Published in 1963 by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
place de Fontenoy, Paris-7e
Printed by Irnprimerie Union, Paris

0 Unesco 1963
Printed in France
DP.~Z/YII. 3/A
 THE C O N T E N T , INFLUENCE
A N D VALUE O F SCIENTIFIC C O N F E R E N C E
PAPERS A N D P R O C E E D I N G S

As the number of international and national conferences increases,importantproblems arise

in connexion with the bibliographical control of the publications which issuefrom them.
For this reason,the InternationalFederalionfor Documentation (FID),on 14 Septem-
ber 1959,signed a contract with Unesco, after the InternationalAdvisory Committee on
Bibliography had given its approval,for the preparation of a ‘Study on the content,
infuence, availability and value of scientijic conference papers and proceedings’.
If the work was to be done thoroughly,it was essential that thejeld to be covered should
be dejned at the outset. It was accordingly decided that only corferences held by inter-
national organizations concerned with the basic sciences (including applied sciences)
should be dealt with,and that theperiod covered should be I January 1954 to 31 Decem-
ber 1958.
In addition to obtaining information jrom its own member organizations, the FID
consulted the Union of International Associations ( UIA) and the Abstracting Board
of the International Council of Scientijic Unions (ICSU)and other competent organi-
zations and persons.
The present report was preparedfor the FID by Mr.Paul Poindron,Conservateur en
chef, Direction des Bibliothdques de France, who based his work on the results of FID
and UIA surveys and such other documentation as was available on the subject.I
The writer has made it his object,jrst, to give asfill1 an account as possible of a y
weaknesses in the present arrangementsand, secondly,to suggest ways of overcorning them
now and in thefuture.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON CONFERENCES

In the English title of this study,as formulated by Unesco, the word ‘confe-
rence’ is used, while in the French title the word corigrds was adopted in
preference to con$rence. It would perhaps have been better to use the English
word ‘meeting’and the French word riunion,which are wider in scope.W e felt
that the word ‘conference’should not be given a narrow interpretation in this
study,and that w e should include meetings such as symposia,some of which,
in any case,are organized in conjunction with larger meetings.
The truth is that every languagehas a number of differentwords formeetings.
The commonest in French are congrds, conjie’rence,colloque and symposium, but
other words are also used-journies, journe‘es d’itudes,session, siminaire, table
ronde,stage,comiti,commission,conseil,assemblieginirale,and so on,2although some
of them,such as assemblie ginhale,are more properly used for the meetings of
administrative bodies.
While many people would say that the word congr2s suggests a meeting
attended by more people than does the word conjerence, the two words are
undoubtedly very often interchangeable.It would, however, be easier for a
reader to determine the nature of a meeting from its title-and consequently
to ascertain whether the papers issued by it will be of use to him-if the termi-
nology employed were standardized. This, however, is not the place to put
forward suggestions,or even to restate all those that have been made. Mention
I. As space in the Bulletin is limited,it has not been possible to include all the supportin!: documentsfor this study.
2. English terms used include : congress, conference,colloquy, symposium, session, working session, convention,
committee, council, general assembly, etc.

5
need only be made of the proposals by Professor Robert DebrC in connexion
with medical science, which were approved by the Council for International
Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) .l It is preferable,however, for
all intergovernmental and non-governmentalorganizations to adopt, and, of
course,to adhere to,a standardized terminology.
Some meetings-the big internationalconferences-are attended by a wide
variety of people who may number thousands,z while others (for example,
certain colloquies and symposia) are attended by only a few dozen specialists,%
although there are some which have over a hundred participants.* As a rule,
large numbers of papers are read, though not everyone who attends a large
internationalconference makes a formal contribution.
A colloquy is held to discuss one specific topic, and consequently all the
papers read are on the same subject,whereas the theme or themes chosen for a
conference or congress are often fairly general,and papers which do not deal
with the central topic are often accepted.Some organizationsarrange meetings
without selecting a particular subject for discussion, and accept any paper
which is more or less relevant to the title of the meeting.
While meetings attended only by specialists are usually highly scientific in
character,others may be more in the nature of general exchanges of informa-
tion. Professor DebrC says that a large international congress with 2,000 to
3,000participants is not the best place for the appraisal of new developments,
but it does offer an opportunity of making techniques and methods used in the
.mostadvanced areas known throughout the rest of the world. A n international
conference attended by only 200 or 300 persons, admission to which is by
invitation only,can be of great value when the object is to further knowledge
in a specific field and to present new ideas to a group of people with a more
uniform background than those attending a large conference.A symposium is
more suitable for the advanced study of specialized subjects,the organization
ofpractical projects and the planning ofresearch studies,and can be extremely
useful for interdisciplinary projects.ti
The reason for including the word ‘scientific’in the title of the study to be
carried out for Unesco was that the study is to deal only with meetings on
scientific subjects, attended by scientific specialists. Although it is more
especially conferences on the basic and applied sciences that are referred to,
it can be assumed that most of what is said applies also to conferences on the
social sciences and the humanities.
Although the word ‘international’is not included in the title of the study,
w e have confined our attention, as w e have already said, to conferences
convened by internationalorganizations and, more specifically,to those held
by international non-governmental organizations. This is understandable,
since the survey of international organizationshas been carried out by UIA.
W e should point out that the main significance of the adjective ‘interna-
I. The organization of international meetings. Unesco chronicle, vol. V, no. 6,June 1959,p. 195-99.
2. There were 2,000 participants at the International Conference on Information Processing, organized by Unesco
in Pans; 1,700 at the 4th Congress of the International Association on Food Distribution (Lausanne); 5,300 at
the 9th Congress of the International Society of Radiology (Munich). Non-scientific conferences are attended
by still larger numbers.
3. A list mtitled‘who went where?’, showing the numbers and nationalities ofparticipantsat internationalmeetings,
is published several times a year in the review International associations.
4. The 2nd International Symposium on X-ray Microscopy and X-ray Microanalysis (Stockholm)-180 parti-
cipants from I 7 countries; Unesco/International Union of Biological Sciences/Italian National Commission on
Nuclear Research, Symposium on the Immediate and Low-Level Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Living Cells
(Venice)--r 16 participants from 16countries (Intmtional associations, 1960,no. 9, September, p. 559-62).
5. See the study on symposia carried out for Unesco by the Unesco Institute for Social Sciences (Cologne) in colla-
boration with the Sociaal Padagogisch Instituut of the University of Amsterdam. The findings were published
by Nels Anderson, sociologist and Director of the Institutefor Social Sciences (Cologne)and K.J. Nijkerk, assis-
tant research psychologist at the Sociaal Padagogisch Instituut, under the title International seminars: an ana-
lysis and an evaluation (Adminislrativc science quartcrly, vol. 3, no. z September 1958). Mr. Nijkerk has kindly
added a number of comments, which have been included in this study.

6
tional’,when used with a word like ‘congress’, ‘conference’,etc., in the title of
a meeting,is that several different nationalities will be represented among the
participants. This point requires some elucidation. It is important to decide
how many countries have to be represented before a meeting can be regarded
as international,since this is a criterion that may determine the inclusion of
a meeting in a timetable or bibliography of international meetings. In a
bibliography entitled Documents of international meetings 1953, published in
1959 by Robert W . Schaaf of the International Organizations Section of the
Library of Congress,an international meeting is arbitrarily defined as one in
which individuals from at least three countries participate. Bilateral meetings
are excluded-a decision that is open to question and has been challenged
by the Centralny Instytut Informacji Naukowo Technicznej i Ekonomicznej
(Warsaw), which considers that any conferences attended by the represen-
tatives of two States should be regarded as an international conference.
Similarly, conferences labelled ‘international’on the ground that perhaps
three or fourout of 800 participantscome from abroad have not been included.
It must be remembered,however,that conference records themselves are our
sole authority for such figures. O n the other hand, the Library of Congress
regards conferenceswhich are not called ‘international’,but which are attended
by a comparatively large number of foreigners,as international conferences.
Here again w e may have to consult the records of each meeting to find the
proportion of foreign participants. In some cases the proportion-though not
the actual numbers-of foreign participants can be deduced from the rules
of procedure.
The fact remains that the word ‘international’ is a fairly loose term,referring,
as it may, to the participation of anything from two or three countries to over
a hundred. It must also be remembered that the word ‘world’,which is
sometimes used, often indicates merely an intention that, if not all countries,
at least all regions of the world shall be represented, rather than that they
actually are represented.
Internationalconferencesare usually convened either by intergovernmental
international organizations or by international non-governmental orga-
nizations, but there are also a certain number that are convened by State or
private national 0rganizations;land obviously,when dealing with the question
of the availability of documents, we cannot ignore national conferences at
which none of the participants are from abroad;some of these are of unques-
tionable scientific value and may produce scientific publications of interest to
scientistsbelonging to other countries.A recent survey by the National Science
Foundation, Washington, shows that 94 per cent of professional scientific
societies in the United States of America organize annual meetings, at which
papers on original research work are presented, and that 70 per cent of these
societies reported that some of these papers were subsequently published,
either in their own journals or in other suitable publications.2

DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED B Y CONFERENCES

Although the above points relating to conferences needed to be made clear,

what we are really concerned with is not conferences themselves but the
documents they produce.

I. Analysis of the timetable ofinternationalmeetings planned for July and August 1960 shows that gz meeting3 were
convened by international non-governmentalorganizations in July and 19 by other non-internationalorganiza-
tions. The corresponding figuresfor August are 126and 25. Mr. Speeckaert, Secretary-General of the Union of
International Associations,considers that these figures are representative,
2. See D u e s and membershi@ in scientificsocieties. Report of a survey conducted by Ofice of Science Information Seruice. National
Science Foundation, September 1960.NF 60-55,p. 6.

7
 Conference documents are either mimeographed or printed. Most docu-
ments which are produced before or during a conference are mimeographed,
as also are highly specialized documents which are of interest to a very small
number of people (these are usually duplicated or possibly offset printed).
Mimeographed sheet documents usually measure 2 I x 27 centimetres or
21 x 29.7 centimetres,according to standard local usage. It is desirable that
all documents published in book form, whether mimeographed or printed,
paper-covered or bound, should be of the same size;this applies not only to
those issued during a particular meeting,but also-unless it is imperative for
the size to be changed-to those issued throughoutthe various meetings of the
one conference.Such uniformity would greatly facilitate the work oflibrarians.
It need hardly be said that all documents should bear at least the full official
title of the conference and its number,followed by the place where the meeting
is being held and the opening and closing dates.Unfortunately,the title of the
conference is not always given on mimeographed sheet documents.
W e shall consider documentsin three groups,according to whether they are
published before, during or after each conference.
Documents published before the conference begins
Circular letters giving notice of a conference and outlining the conference
programme are fairly widely distributed, either directly or, in the case of
international non-governmental organizations, through national members.
Other documents, however (principally reports and papers, both of which
will be referred to in this article as ‘papers’),are usually sent only to bodies
which have enrolled as partiFipants in a conference, or even, in the case of
preliminary reports,only to the writers of papers. Some organizations publish
and send to participants the text of conference papers before the conference
begins (these are sometimes referred to as ‘preprints’or pri-tiragex). This is a
system which makes great demands on both organizers and writers. In the
interests of uniformity,writers should be informed of the rules to be observed
in preparing their papers-the number of copies, maximum length,form in
which notes, bibliographical references (IS0 Recommendation R/77)and
the author’ssummary should be given,and the maximum length of the latter,
which should be prepared in accordance with Unesco’srules and in the same
language as the paper itself. Papers should be submitted some months before
the opening of the conference,or at any rate well beforehand, if they have to
be approved,or read by a rapporteur,before the conference.Time must also
be allowed for the printing of any illustrations;limits may be placed on the
use of illustrations, but there are cases in which diagrams and charts are
essential to an understanding of the text. Illustrationsshould be sent in with
the text itself, and the necessity for authorization to be obtained andfees
paid for the reproduction of copyright material-which may occasion further
delay-should not be overlooked.
Papers should be submitted by the writer in one of the official languages
adopted for the conference1 If a paper is written in some other language,
I. A survey carried out by UIA on the languages used at international conferences shows the number of times
when the principal languages were used. The survey covered both written languages, i.e., those in which papers
could be submitted, and spoken languages, i.e., those which speakers could use and in which simultaneous or
consecutive interpretation was provided. The survey covered relatively large meetings held between I September
1960and the end of 1961.
The following written languages (listed in alphabetical order) were used at 285 conferences :Danish (once),
Dutch (8 times), English (250 times), Esperanto (6 times), Finnish (once), French (242 times), German (121
times), Hebrew (twice),Hindustani (twice), Italian (24times), Norwegian (7 times), Portuguese (twice), Russian
(12 times), Spanish (47 times). The following spoken languages were used at 225 conferences: Danish (none),
Dutch (8times), English (205 times),Esperanto (6times),Finnish (once),French (205times), German (127times),
Hebrew (none), Hindustani (twice), Italian (24 times), Norwegian (3 times), Portuguese (6 times), Russian
(IO times), Spanish (45 times). International associations, 1960,no. 8, August, p. 484.

8
it is the author’sresponsibility to have it translated and to send the translation,
marked ‘translatedfrom .. ,’. This has the double advantage of allowing the
author to correct mistakes in translation before the paper is printed and of
allowing the paper to be printed immediately it is received.Proofs should not
be sent to the author but should be read by those responsible for the confer-
ence publications-a procedure which avoids the inconvenience of author’s
corrections.
if it is intended to publish not only authors’ summaries, in the various
languages used,but also translationsofthese summaries,the conference should
be responsible for the production of such translations.
According to the UIA survey,the present practice is for preparatory docu-
ments to be issued in both French and English, and even, in 20 per cent of
cases,in German as well.
in his study of seminars,Mr. Nijkerk draws attention to the difficulty some
participants have in following the proceedings.It is often forgotten,he remarks,
that some of those who attend a conference may find it difficult to understand
an English or a French text, particularly if the subject is abstract or highly
condensed or if the style is literary.H e suggests that it would be useful to study
the extent to which participants in international conferences understand the
documents used.
Papers may be published separately,in which case each one can be issued
as soon as the secretariat receives it; if so, such papers should be numbered
consecutively (independently of references to a particular section of the
conference,for example) in order to facilitate checking and to enable each
participant to see whether his collection is compIete or not, and which docu-
ments,if any,are missing. From the librarian’spoint of view, it is better if the
documents are published in book form, but in that case numbering of the
pages must be held up until all the papers are available. This is not often
feasible,but if the papers are published as separate pamphlets,the type can
always be kept set up for subsequent publication in book form. There is one
point of paramount importance: the number of copies of papers published
must be sufficient to allow interested libraries and documentation centres,
other than those participating in or represented at the conference,to purchase
what they need. As things are,preparatory documents appear to be supplied
only to participants,and are hardly ever sent to libraries.
It will be argued (and quite logically) that those who organize conferences
may find it very difficult to gauge the needs oflibraries.One way ofovercoming
the difficulty might be to assess the requirements in each field of knowledge
separately.
Obviously, in some cases it may be preferable to publish summaries only,
rather than publish papers in full and available summaries as well. in other
cases, a combination of the two systems may be best. Some papers call for
publication in full,together with a summary,while in other cases a summary
is sufficient.At present,according to the UIA survey,summariesare published
in some cases and the full text in others,in more or less equal numbers.I
Too often, participants are handed the papers on the opening day of the
conference,so that they have no time to study them thoroughly.O n the other
hand, papers sent out before the conference should be dispatched in time to
reach their destination before participants leave for the conference; otherwise
the secretariat will have to supply them with further copies on arrival. Some
delegates have to leave their countryweeks before a conference begins.Provision
should be made on the application forms for participants to request that
I. Summaries of papers read at about thirty medical congresses held between 1952 and September 1960were pub-
lished before the congresses were held, in the form of separate booklets, by the Ercerpta Medica, in a special
series entitled Excerpta Medica international congress series. Other organizations,working in other fields, might well
follow the example ofthe Excerpta Medica Foundation (Amsterdam-New York) in this respect.

9
publications be held for them in readiness for the beginning of the conference,
if they cannot be sent out before a certain date. There remains the question of
when the papers should be sent.The staffof the University of Poitierssuggests
that they be dispatched two or three months before the meeting. But anyone
who organizesconferencesknows how difficultit is to induce those who prepare
papers to do so within the set time-limits.
Then, too, it is not enough to send out papers beforehand-participants
must familiarize themselves with them. Mr. Nijkerk notes, in his study of
seminars,that participants had not read the documents they received.This is a
great disadvantage in a seminar when it is assumed that all the participants
have studied the documents sent them.
Ideally,of course,papers should be printed before the conference begins,an
arrangement which has the additional advantage of leaving time free for
discussion which would otherwise be spent in reading papers aloud. The most
participants would be allowed would be to give an oral summaryof their paper.
Speeches can be more carefully prepared if they are based on a written text.
There are, however,some disadvantages about this arrangement;for instance,
if papers are written some time before the conference,new information may
become available between the time when the paper is submitted and the
beginning of the conference.The obvious answer is that the writer can always
give the conference any additional information he thinks advisable orally,
especially ifit is merely a matter ofbringing his paper up to date.Simultaneous
interpretation gives a participant who neither understands nor reads the lan-
guage in which a paper is presented a more detailed knowledge of its contents
than a mere translation ofthe author’ssummary or simultaneous interpretation
of an oral summary; but interpreters are reluctant to give a simultaneous
interpretation of a paper that is read aloud.

Documents published during the conference

If everything were done as it should be (unfortunately,a Utopian supposi-
tion),no papers would need to be mimeographed eitherin the originallanguage
or in translation during the conference,nor would participants need to have
their own papers mimeographed beforehand, and distribute them themselves.
In practice,however,it is not always possible to avoid this sort of thing,and if
extra documents have to be produced during the conference enough copies
should be available to supply all those who received the earlier papers with one
of each.
The text of opening and closing speeches is sometimesdistributed,although
these are frequently ofsecondary importance.Other speeches or addressesmay
also be thought worth mimeographing. Librarians and documentalists will be
familiar with two instances of such addresses-Ortega y Gasset’s address to
the InternationalCongress ofLibraries,held at Madrid in 1935,and the speech
of welcome made by Pope Pius XII,at Caste1 Gandolfo,to participants at the
FID conference in I95I.
Lists of participants have a certain value, although many contain errors,
and include the names of intending participants who, in fact,did not attend.
Provisional and supplementary lists are usually brought out, but final lists
are not always issued. Lists should give not only participants’names but also
their titles and permanent address.
The final text of resolutions is a more important matter. The text of reso-
lutions adopted by a conference is reproduced in the general report on the
conference,if one is issued,but, as we shall see,some considerable time may
elapse before the report is published. It is imperative,however, that all parti-
cipants should have draft resolutions before them, in the official languages
of the conference,during the actual discussions, and the final text should be

IO
published immediately after the conference.Some organizations are compelled
by their constitution to submit resolutions to members of national branches
for their approval when the conference closes,so that the text is not always
absolutely final. Some publish resolutions in a summary report on the confer-
ence,which is either mimeographed and sent to participants or published in
the officialjournal of the association concerned.‘Thispractice might well be
adopted generally. If summary reports are published separately,a sufficient
number should be reproduced for them to be sent to all who are entitled
to receive conference documents, as in the case of supplementary papers
mentioned above.

Documents published after the conference

Obviously,if all the relevant papers are published before the conference and
issued in book form for the use of libraries and documentation centres, there
should be no need to reissue them after the conference. The most that should
be needed is a supplement containing papers submitted after the date fixed
and slips listing errata if any printer’s errors were made when the main
volume was printed.Any supplementary material supplied by writers may be
included in the proceedings of the conference, together with the record of
discussions.
If the complete set of papers has not been published before the conference
and only some ofthem have been mimeographed,they should all be published
as soon as possible after the conference,so that they may be of use to persons
who have not attended the meeting.
It is not advisable to publish only summariesof papers,after the conference.
Financial considerations sometimes dictate a combination of procedures-
the full text of some papers is published, and a summary of others, but the
choice is sometimes arbitrary.
Papers published after the conference may be in a separate book from that
containing the proceedings of the conference. Usually, however, papers are
included in the volume containing the proceedings (according to the UIA sur-
vey,this was so in 23 cases examined as against g in which the oppositepractice
was adopted). It is also desirable that the volume containing the proceedings,
which should include discussions (as in over two-thirdsof all cases,according
to the UIA survey), should be published soon after the conference.
It was stated above that papers should be published in one of the languages
of the conference,the one the writer prefers. The question of discussions is a
more difficult problem. Speeches may be reported, in entirety or in sum-
marized form, either in the official language used by the speaker or in the
language selected by the person editing the proceedings. In some cases, a
version is produced in each of the official languages.
The 2nd Congress of International Congress Organizers and Technicians
(Lausanne,15-18 March 1960)1 recommended that reports of discussionsshould
be prepared in the language of the speaker and subsequently translated into
the other languages.
Resolutions should always be published in each ofthe official languages used
at the conference.2
The UIA survey shows that two out of three organizations publish multi-
lingual volumes of proceedings, and only one out of three issues a number of
unilingual versions in different languages. Only one organization in ten
I. International associations, 1960,no. 5, May, p. 307.
z. The 2nd Congress of International Congress Organizers and Technicians expressed the opinion that every inter-
national organization should codify the resolutions it has adopted, after a period offour or five years, and at each
conference should review the conclusions it reached at the preceding one, providing that the same topics are
being discussed.

I1
publishes its proceedings in one language only,with summariesin one or more
other languages. French and English are always used, German in a large
number of cases,and other languages less frequently.
Conference proceedings are almost always issued in book form. The UIA
survey showed that 23 conferencesdo so,as againstfourwhich include proceed-
ings of their meetings in a periodical publication.The latter method is possible
onlyifawhole section or a specialissue is devoted to the conference proceedings.
It is probably more suited to the publication of proceedings than of papers,
and the decision whether it should be adopted or not would depend on the
relative volume of the papers and proceedings produced. Publication of pro-
ceedings in a periodical has the advantage of being prompt, and of auto-
matically ensuring a distribution at least as wide as the number of readers of
the periodical itself. Extra copies should be printed for people other than
regular subscribers who want to obtain the conference publications. There
is, however, the risk that librarians who do not abstract the periodicals they
receive may not be aware that they have the proceedingsof a particular confer-
ence.With this reservation,it may be said that publishing officialproceedings.
in a periodical is to be recommended, provided-as was said above-that
they can be obtained as special issues or separate offprints.This applies, of
course, to official proceedings, and not to shorter reports which conference
participants or organizers may have published. Not that the value of such
summaries,often the only available source of information, should be under-
estimated;but the distinction between the two must be observed.Itis something
of a paradox that unofficial reports are published much more rapidly than the
official proceedings. Another advantage of publishing papers or proceedings
in a periodical is that they can be more easily included in bibliographies or
abstracted,especially if the bibliographies regularly publish abstracts from the
journal concerned.
Mr. Carl Bjorkbom, Chief Librarian of the Royal Institute of Technology
Library in Stockholm (Kungl.Tekniska Hogskolans Bibliotek) considers that
the proper channel for disseminating scientific information is not conference
publications but the ordinary scientific journals. Papers,he thinks,should be
published before each conference,in the form ofextractsor preprints ofarticles
published in journals.The Centralny Instytut Informacji Naukowo Technic-
znej i Ekonomicznej (Warsaw) holds the same opinion. It should be pointed
out, however, that few periodicals are in a position to treble or even double
the normal number of pages of one of their issues. Serial publication is not
to be recommended,and publishing some material in one journal and some
in others has its drawbacks.
Not all the documents produced by a conference are published in their
entirety or even in summarized form. This makes it imperative for the secre-
tariatsofinternationalorganizations,even more than for those ofnationalorga-
nizations, to keep such documents in their files, especially those which have
not been published and might be needed for research.Should an organization
be dissolved these records should be transferred to a permanent body such as
the national archives or the national library.

INDEXES

As a result of a reader's complaint that most publications issued by scientific

and technical conferences and symposia have no index, ASLIB decided to
make a detailed study of this question.'

I. Hanson, C. W.; Janes,Marian. Lack of indexes in reports of conferences.Report of an investigation. Journal of

documentation, vol. 16, no. 2, June 1960,p. 65-70.

I2
 The study covered 205 publications listed in the British national bibliography
between January 1956 and September 1959 inclusive,in classes 500 (Science)
and 600 (Technology), excluding Medicine.
Half the publications had no index, rather more than half (59 per cent),
had no subject index, 66 per cent had no author index,and only a quarter
had both types of index.E-Iansonand MarianJanes point out that the lack of
an author index is no great disadvantage unless a large number of authors
(over 25) are mentioned, but the lack of a subject index is more serious,
especially if the publication gives much factual information and consists of a
large number of pages.
Looking at the question from the point of view of the size of publications,
w e find that go per cent of those with fewer than a hundred pages had no
subject index, whilst in larger publications the percentages were: 71 (IOI-
2 0 0 pages), 57 (201-300 pages), 34 (301-400 pages), 54 (401-500 pages),
50 (over 500 pages). The situation appears to be deteriorating,for the average
percentage rose from 56 in 1955 to 68in 1959.
Publications also vary in this respect according to the branch of science they
deal with,Physics,chemistry and technical journals have fewer indexes than
biology journals. Sixty per cent of publications in the former group have no
subject index, and 53 per cent in the latter group. In the other sciences, the
situation is even worse-86 per cent of publications have no subject index.
It was thought useful to examine the relationship between the presence or
absence of an index and the length of time that elapses before papers and
proceedings are published. Out of 194publications published,67 per cent of
the 42 publications which appear in the same year as the conference is held
have no index,compared with 58 per cent of the 93 publicationswhich appear
in the following year,61per cent of the 46 which appear two years later,and
85 per cent of those which appear three or more years later. It is clear, then,
that the two or more years which may elapse between a conference and the
publication of its proceedings are not normally used to compile an index.
Lastly,an attempt was made to discover whether the lack oi an index was
related to the question whether the proceedings were published by the orga-
nizers of the conference or by a commercial publisher,but no conclusion could
be reached on this point.
Investigations made in the course of the ASLIB survey of the proceedings of
conferences which have no index showed that the content of certain papers
might easily be overlooked, because the titles of these papers were not suffi-
ciently indicative of the subjects dealt with.
The UIA survey shows that more than one third of conference proceedings
have an index-a feature greatly appreciated by users, as is shown by the
replies of the teaching staff at the University of Poitiers.

CIRCULATION O F PUBLICATIONS

Who, w e may ask,reads conference publications, apart from the participants?

It was pointed out above that preparatory documentsappear to be issued to
participants only. The UIA survey of conference proceedings shows that nine
organizations printed between 500 and I ,000 copies, I I printed between
1,000 and 1,500,and four printed over 1,500.
The same survey also shows that, in most cases, conference papers are
paid for by a separate subscription not included in the general fee, and that
a pre-publication reduction averaging 20 per cent is allowed. Prices vary
between I O and 20 dollars,usually nearer 20 than IO.
There is very little publicity to encourage sales. Proceedings are sold in
some cases by a commercialpublisher,and in others by the national committee
ofthe country in which the conference is held (asa rule,this system is not very

‘3
 successful). With a few exceptions, press services informing periodicals of
published documents for review appear to be most inadequate.
In fact, most of the subscribers to conference publications are specialists
in the branch of science dealt with by the conference (18specialists as against
five libraries).
Geographically, too, the distribution of conference proceedings is very
restricted, and should be extended.
A fairly large number of free copies are distributed (five organizations said
that they distributed between 500 and I ,000,and one, 1,400). Six organizations
stated that they distributed more free copies than the number they sold.
Twelve organizations sell 500 copies, seven sell between 500 and 1,000,
and four between 2,000 and 3,000.Some organizations thought that fewer
free copies should be distributed, and others felt that outside assistance should
be enlisted to improve publicity and stimulate sales.
Mr. Speeckaert has some comments to add to the conclusions reached by
the UIA survey.H e maintains that far too little is made of all the intelligence,
time and money that go into an international conference.The weakest point
is the follow-upof what is mistakenly called the end of the conference.With
the preparation of the proceedings the organizers regard their work as done.
T w o things need doing: first, the content and general lay-out proceed-
ings must be improved and, second,they must be made more easily obtain-
able.
As to the improvementof the proceedings themselves,the attention of inter-
national organizations will have to be drawn to the problem; they will have
to be convinced of the need for improvement,and practical suggestions and
examples of how success can be achieved will have to be put before them.
Above all,what is needed (startingwith the simplest point) is:
I. T o see that the subject dealt with and not the words ‘proceedings’, ‘Nth
Conference’ or the name of the organization is the most prominent part
of the tit1e.l
It is questionablewhether all librarians are completely in agreement with
Mr. Speeckaert. Mr.Coblans, of the European Organization for Nuclear
Research (CERN), considers this a practice to be strongly deprecated. In
any case,if a conference has a special title, the standard information (name
of the conference,serial number, place and date) should also be given on
the title page and in any other publicity or bibliographical entry, so that
the conference documents may be obtained.
2. T o appoint one person,as soon as the work oforganizing a conferencebegins,
to take charge of the publication of proceedings-preferably someone
who has no other official conference duties.
3. To omit from the proceedings such purely literary matter as rhetorical
effectsor expressions of courtesy.
4. T o produce summary records of discussions, prepared by professional
minute-writers,rather than verbatim records. Only essential facts should
be recorded.
5. T o produce and print the final version of publications as speedily as pos-
sible.
W e shall also outline below the measures proposed by UIA to make reports
more readily available,in accordance with the opinion expressed by the Lau-
sanne Congress that‘the task ofthose who attemptto obtain the transactions of

I. See :Wittmann, J. La diffusion des publications internationales. International ussociations, 1959. no. IO,October,
p. 716.
2. See:van Tongeren, E.Preparation and distribution ofcongress documents (Reportssubmitted to the 2nd Congress
of International Congress Organizers and Technicians, UIA, Lausanne, 15-18 March 1960). This report was
published in International congress organization-theory and practice, Brussels, UIA, 1960. (Series: International
congress science, vol. I).

‘4
congresses ought to be made easier’;it should be remembered that the publi-
cation of reports in a journal can assist in distribution.

P U B L Ic A T Io N D E’AD L IN E s
Turning again to Mr.Speeckaert’slast comment,w e see that one of the main
grounds for criticism is the delay in publishing proceedings.
Of I I I proceedings (not all of which were of scientific conferences),due to
appear between July 1960 and 1963’1 29 were to be published within two
months of the conference, 14 within three months, 14 within four months,
8 within five months, 1 2 within six months, 12 within seven months, four
within eight months, two within nine months, two within IO months, one
within I I months, 12 within 1 2months,and one within 15or 16months. And
it must be remembered that these are the periods within which it was intended
to issue the reports, and do not necessarily represent the time which actually
did elapse before publication.
The ASLIB survey of 194 publications mentioned in the British natirjnal
bibliography lists 42 proceedings which appeared in the same year as the
conference concerned,93 which appeared in the following year, 46 which
were issued two years afterwards and 13 which were published three years
afterwards or even later.
M r . Speeckaert considersthat proceedings are published within a reasonable
time (the majority appear from six months to a year after the conference),
but the opinion of those who have to use them is that this is much too long.
M r . Speeckaert notes the time variation but thinks that it is only apparent and
is to be attributed to tardiness in issuing notices ofpublication and in the publi-
cation of criticismsin reviews.
Mr. Coblans2 considers that the volumes of the proceedings of any inter-
national conference can and should be distributed within five to six months
of the conference,even if publication is in a number of languages and involves
complicated drawings and plates.He points out that discussions can be record-
ed on tape, transcribed,submitted to the speakers for correction,and trans-
lated if necessary.Slides of diagrams and photographs after projection must be
immediatelycopied and enlarged in a form suitable for submission to the block-
makers. It has even been found advisable to photograph the blackboard regu-
larly in scientific conferences.Editing must be left to a few competent experts.
Correctionsand additionsshouldonly be accepted up tothe end oftheconference.
The above points are repeated and expanded by Alfred Gunther, of the
Scientific Information Service,CERN,in Geneva,in connexion with the pro-
ceedings of three international conferences convened by CERN.
M r . Gunther considers that ifproceedings are published by a commercialfirm
it will usually be two or three years after the conference before they are avail-
able,and this he feels is too long.Lately,it is true,some publishers have made
an effort to speed up publication by six to twelve months,but further improve-
ment is impossible,for the publisher is tied down to his publication timetable.
Mr.Gunther believes that proceedings could be published much more quickly
if a team led by the scientific editor and composed of scientific secretaries,a
documentation service and an efficient printing firm collaborated in preparing
them. The proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Peaceful
Uses ofAtomic Energy,which comprised 2,I oo scientific papers,were published
in one complete English edition (33 volumes) within the record time of about
one year.
I. See Internationalassociations, 1960,no. 7, July, p. 427-31.
2. Coblans, H.Documentation in the second half of the twentieth century. Libri, 1960,vol. IO, no. I, p. 23-32.
3. Einige Dokumentations Probleme wissenschaftlicher Tagungen und Kongresse. Reuue de la documentation, 1960,
vol. 27, no. 3, p. 123-5.

‘5
 As Mr.Speeckaertsuggested,what is needed is for one person to be appointed
when the conference is being planned,to take charge of publications;in addi-
tion, there should be a definite plan and stringent rules regarding conference
documents. Normally, sufficient staff is provided for the actual running of a
conference,but not for the work of publishing the proceedings.

V A L U E OF C O N F E R E N C E PUBLICATIONS

It is felt that too many conferenceson the same subject are held, and that one
every four yearswould be enough.In his recommendationsto the 2nd Congress
of International Congress Organizers and Technicians, Mr. Rudolph Morf,
Secretary-Generalof the InternationalUnion of Pure and Applied Chemistry,
expressed the opinion that 'the main international congresses should be or-
ganized at intervals of several years and should include, besides plenary
sessions and sectionalones devoted to mutual information,discussion meetings
of small groups'.l O n the other hand, one of the professors at the University
of Poitiers thinks that symposia for the discussion of a narrower field of spe-
cialization should be held more frequently-oncea year,on an average.
This links up with Professor DebrC's proposals that large medical congresses
should be less concentrated, and that they should be channelled towards
communication of current medical techniques and methods. For this reason
he considers it important that conferencesshould be attended by practitioners,
especially those who work in countries which are now developing,and also by
health officials.As such congressesare intended for general review and commu-
nication, they should be held less frequently. A congress should provide an
opportunity for specialists to meet others from neighbouring disciplines. A
number of symposia may be held before large conferences which require very
careful preparation, and a seminar (which is essentially a teaching device)
afterwards. Knowledge which has been made available should reach isolated
communities, such as hospitals and medical schools in countries now in the
process of development. Professor Debrt thinks that,in order to overcome the
growing trend towards excessive specialization,conferencesshould be planned
so as to encourage an encyclopaedic outlook; we must strive for synthesis,
so that both research workers and general practitioners may be able to ex-
pand their medical knowledge,and be promptly acquainted with the latest ad-
vances.
It is no easy matter to evaluate the success of a conference, for the only
person qualified to judge is a specialist in the particular subject under discus-
sion,or one closely related to it.When addressing the AcadCmie des Sciences,
in Paris, recently,Mr. Pierre Tardi expressed the view that there were too
many participants at the 12th General Assembly of the International Union
of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG)(Helsinki,27 July-6 August 1960)and
that, while it had provided numerous opportunities for personal contacts,
the standard of the papers read was uneven.2
It is, of course, more or less inevitable that some of the papers read at a
conference should be of a higher standard than others. Some are prepared
simply because the writer has been asked to submit a paper or because sending
a paper gives him a good excuse to travel to the conference,and not because
he felt intellectually impelled to write it-which does not imply, however,
that papers prepared under such conditions are worthless.
Some papers consist of material already presented at another meeting or
already published, in a different form but without any important changes-
a fact which, of course, is not acknowledged. Others are the fruit of recent
I. International congFess organization-theory and practice. Brussels, UIA, 1960,p. 21 (Series:International congress
science, vol. I).
2. Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des siances de I'dcadimie des sciences, vol. 251, no. 15, IO octobre, p. 1438.

16
 research,and others again are valuable in that they review current advances
and provide inforn?ation about them,a functionwhich may be of considerable
importance,Mr. Ohman (Sweden), Vice-president of FID,who has made a
specialstudy ofthis point,cites as an example the importance ofa Soviet paper
read at the International Mineral Dressing Congress (Stockholm, 1957).
Previous scrutiny of papers to be read may help to improve the standard,
or, at least to weed out,those papers which are not relevant to the subject of
the conferenceor are oftoo low a standard;but arranging for such examination
may entail many difficulties, including pre-publication delays. It may be
carried out at the international level by a committee of scientists from a num-
ber of countries, although correspondence between the members of such a
committee can be a time-consumingand cumbersome process;or a committee
of scientists belonging to the country where the congress is to be held may exa-
mine the papers, but in that case there may be doubt about the impartiality
of the committee; or, lastly, papers may be screened by making national
committeesresponsible for a selectionfrom papers submitted by their nationals.
The latter procedure is perhaps preferable.
Some conferences are purely scientific, whereas others (for example, a
horticultural congress or a congress on fruit growing) are attended by both
research workers and practitioners. This distinction has an obvious bearing
on the nature of the papers read,as has already been said in relation to medical
conferences.
All that can be hoped for is that organizations which convene conferences
will make a selection before accepting papers submitted to them. This would
be in the interest of research workers,for with the growing number of confer-
ences many of them cannot attend all the meetings in their own field or related
fields and are obliged to keep up with new developmentsby reading conference
publications. T o conclude this discussion ofthe value of conference publications
we cannot do better than quote the words of Mr. King,President of FID:
‘Conferencesare organized for a very large number of different reasons.
In the case of smaller meetings there may well be an announcement of new
items of knowledge and their discussion in an expert milieu. Others may
essentially be organized for teaching purposes,still more are to allow a general
assessment of the situation reached in a particular field of learning.There are
other congressesand especially the larger ones which are mainly a manifestation
of solidarity of those concerned with particular subjects and at which little
completely new material is presented, although much of it may be novel to
the majority present. Clearly, it is impossible to generalize on the value of
the proceedings of meetings within such a broad spectrum of objective. In
some cases new knowledge is presented and its wider dissemination must be
ensured;in other instancesresults,while of great value to participants and to
a somewhat wider audience,are nevertheless transient.In all cases publication
is less valuable the longer it takes to achieve.
‘Oneof the greatest problems of documentation,especially for the natural
sciences is the large bulk of papers appearing. Certainly much multipl~publi-
cation of a particular item of knowledge takes place. Even Dr. Ohman’s
paper points out that of the original papers 61.8 per cent were not published
later in “substantially the same form as in the congress preprints and tran-
sactions”. The operative words here are “substantially the same form”.
‘Muchmore work requires to be done before it can be clearly indicated in
which casescongresspapers and proceedings should be published,or at least in-
cluded through the abstract systems in the fabric of new scientific knowledge.’
I. This was the view expressed by the international committee for the Congress of Applird Mechanics,which recom-
mended that national committees play a mor? active and effectivepart in the selection of papers and the choice
rendus lrebdomadoires des s6ances de l’dcodhie des sciences, vol. 251,no. 14,
of those who are to write them. (Comf~tes
3 octobre 1960,p. 1317.18).

‘7
 A V A I L A B I L I T Y O F S C I ENT1 F I C
CONFERENCE PAPERS A N D PROCEEDINGS

Conferences are announced directly by their organizers, through the distri-

bution ofcircularsand programmes;but there is always a risk that this material
may not reach all the individualsand bodies to whom it would be of interest.
A wider public can be reached by announcing the programme in periodicals.
Thanks to the calendars published in certain periodicals,libraries and docu-
mentation centres are informed about conferences whose publications may
interestthem and are thus able to get into touch with the organizers.
Certain of these calendars are restricted to a particular discipline and to its
related subjects;the inquiries on which some of them are based are not always
systematic,so that they are not necessarily complete. The International Orga-
nizations Section of the Library of Congress recently published a list entitled
Future national and international events: a selected list of calendars,I enumerating the
differentsources which publish information regularly on national and inter-
national meetings. This list gives the titles of 390 calendars or periodicals
containing calendars, which announce not less than 15 events in each issue;
all the titles are received by the Library of Congress.
There are two calendars of a general character,that of the Union of Inter-
national Associations (UIA)and that of the Library of Congress.

T H E UIA C A L E N D A R
The UIA calendar was published for the first time in 1949(on the same lines
as the calendar published in I g I 2 in the monthly journal L a vie internationale).
From 1949 to 1950, it appeared in the Bulletin of the Union of International
Associations, from 1951to 1953in the NGO bulletin, and from 1954onwards,
in International associations. As from M a y I955, a mimeographed supplement
of8 to 16pages was issued monthly between every two numbers of thejournal.
The calendar gave the date and place of the meeting concerned, and the
name and address ofthe organizationor person responsible,usually mentioning
the number of the organization in the latest edition of the Yearbook of inter-
national organizations. There was a system for indicating new information or
changes in a previously published announcement,and for referring readers
to particulars already published in the supplement.The calendar itself gave
details of meetings to be held in the following months. For example,the April
I 960 issue of International associations gave a calendar forJune,July and August
1960.The supplement covered a period of seven years. For want of space,
these last particulars appeared in thejournal only once every six months.
Changes have been made in this organization, and it was decided to cease
publication ofthe supplement at the end of 1960.
This decision was announced by Mr. Speeckaert,Secretary-GeneralofUIA,
in an article published in the Bulletin des biblioth2ques de France,2 in which he
explained that 'after giving much thought to the question,it had been decided
that it will be easier for research workers, and more instructive for the orga-
nizers of conferences,to publish annually,at the end of December,a calendar
in booklet form, covering the longest possible period ahead and giving all
I. Zlatich, M. Future national and infernational euinls: a selccted
list of calendars. Washington, Library of Congress
International Organizations Section, General Reference and Bibliography Division, 1961,34 p. This list was
also published as a supplement to parts I and I1 of the World lirt of future international meetings, December 1961.
2. Ouvrages de r6fCrence sur les organisations et rCunions internationales. In :Bulletin des bibliothlques de France,
'5 annke, no. 11, novembre 1960,p. 415. See also an article in the Unesco bulletin for libraries, vol. XV,no. 3,
May-June 1961,p. 144-6.

18
meetings whose exact date and place have already been announced, with
further particulars such as the address of the local organizer, the number of
participants expected, and the anticipated date of the publication of the
proceedings.
‘A first experiment was made with the publication,in December 1959,of a
booklet2 giving all the international meetings to be held between I January
1960 and 31 December 1961. The fact that this edition sold out within two
months showed that the right method had been discovered and that it would
be useful to publish a similar calendar every year. .. .’
In short,UIA now publishes an annual calendar in English,entitled Inter-
national congress calendar (Brussels, 196I), which gives a chronological list of
meetings to be held over a long period ahead (up to 1966),noting:date, place,
name and address of the organization responsible and address of the local
organizer if any, subject,number of participants expected, whether the pro-
ceedings are to be published and expected date of publication,and mention
of any exhibition to be held in connexion with the conference. This volume
also contains (a) a geographical index,arranged by continentsor large geogra-
phical areas (North America, South America, the Near East) and, within
these categories, in alphabetical order of States and then of towns; (b) an
alphabetical subject index.
In addition to this annual calendar, which is an 88-pagepublication with
notices of between 1,000and 1 , 5 ~ 0 meetings (1,320 in the 1961 issue), a
calendaris also published monthly in International associations.

THE LIBRARY O F CONGRESS C A L E N D A R

The Library of Congress calendarais the successor to the List of international

and foreign scient& and technical meetings published quarterly by the National
Science Foundation (Washington,no. I, 1954).The first issue,entitled World
list of future international meetings, appeared in June 1959.This is a monthly
calendar, in two parts: the first part, for which a grant is received from the
National Science Foundation, is called Science, technology, agriculture, medicine;
the second, Social, cultural, commercial, humanistic. Both are published by the
International Organizations Section of the Library of Congress. Each part
gives, for a period of three years dating from the month of publication, the
calendar itselE, a subject index and an index of the organizations responsible,
the latter containing internationalorganizationsonly.
The foreword explains that the meetings were selected because they are
organized, financed or sponsored internationally,and have definitely inter-
national attendan~e.~ ‘International’, in this sense, applies to meetings at

I. This last particular, together with the name of the publisher ofthe proceedings, is given in the yearly International
congress calendar (1961 edition) and in the supplements puhlished in International associatiom since January 1961.
2. Union of International Associations. International congress calendar 1960-61,A chronological list of international
congresses, confirences, meetings and symposia scheduled to take place between I january 1960 and 31 December 1961,
with addresses of organizing bodies and a subject index. Brussels, rgjg, 40 p.
3. Kathrine 0.Murra, Chief of the International Organizations Section, in her article ‘Futures’in international
meetings, in: College and research libraries, vol. 19,no. 6, November 1958, p. 445-50,gives the sources of inform-
ation used by her in 1958: (a) calendars, with special reference to small calendars (programmes, names of
participants, preliminary papers), (Mrs. Murra also quotes the titles of the principal calendars); (b) periodicals
which provide fuller information than the calendars (335 periodicals using the Roman alphahet gave particulars
of congresses in the field of science and technology,48 of these being periodicals issued by international organ-
izations,while 260 were periodicals published by associations or societies in different countries); the publications
of international learned societies provide some of the best sources; the choice of periodicals must be revised
annually; (c) circulars and programmes; (d) correspondence with the organizations.
4. Mrs. Murra specifiesthat: ‘. ..the definition in the World list of future international meetings was developed for
that publication only, with no attempt to arrive at a universal definition. In order to publish a calendar, the
scope had to be limited to the manpower available to produce it. This required placing rigorous controls on
the scope which, in deference to the user, have heeu stated as clearly as w e could’.

‘9
which at least three countries are represented. A special system is used to
indicate meetings announced and subsequently cancelled or postponed.
Restricted attendance is indicated by the terms ‘Closed’, ‘By invitation’,
‘Restricted group of experts’or ‘ Members only’.Meetings about which there
is any uncertainty are marked ‘Tentativelyscheduled’.When the place, date,
responsible authority or address is not definitely settled,the entry is followed
by the sign: (?). No entry is made when the address, responsible authority,
date and plans are unknown. Special symbols call attention to new meetings
and to meetings for which arrangements have been altered.
Thus, meetings are listed in chronological order with the following infor-
mation: date, title, responsible organization and address-in other words,
the same information as was given in the UIA calendar before additions to it
were made.

R O L E O F C A L E N D A R S A N D POSSIBLE I M P R O V E M E N T S

Generally speaking,the calendars are very useful, for while special libraries,
documentation centres or individual research workers usually receive advance
information concerning the main conferences of interest to them directly from
the internationalor national bodies concerned,or through periodicals dealing
with their particular subject,there are still many conferences which would
escape their notice were it not for these calendars.
The existence of many calendars is justified only by the fact that they report
national conferences along with internationalconferences; but in view of the
cost of drawing up and publishing the calendars and the time wasted by those
who,seeking information about a particular conference,are obliged to consult
several calendars, in the sometimes illusory hope that they supplement one
another,ought not some effort be made to avoid overlapping?
The present situationmight possibly be improvedby having a single calendar
to cover all internationalmeetings,l together with national calendars announc-
ing national conferences.2In our opinion, UIA and the Library of Congress
should consider the feasibility of replacing their two publications by a single
joint publication. As already explained, UIA made certain changes at the
beginning of 1961. W e consider that it would be even better to pool the
resources of the two long lists now in existence and to consider the ideal form
which such a single calendar should take.8
Information given on each conference should include not only the name of
the conference,the place of the meeting and the date, but also the number
of responsible bodies, and sometimes two names-that of the international
organization,and that of the national body in the country where the meeting
is to be held,with the address of the latter; but obviously any mention of the
publicationsoffered for sale,especially those available prior to the conference,
would be appreciated by libraries and documentation centres.

I. Mrs.Murra has been good enough to draw our attention to the value and importance of the (usually very short)
calendan which mention only the meetings of the international organization by which they are published,
such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP)and the International Union
of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). She hopes that these calendan will continue to appear.
I. For Mrs. Murra, the problem of calendars of national meetings is similar to that of national bibliographies.
Each country should be responsible for its own. ‘It would be quite in order for Unesco to encourage the publi-
cation of comprehensive national calendars through its National Commissions or in any other ways. If further
study should indicate the value of a compendium of national calendars, an international organization might
be the logical one to do it.‘
3. The UIA correspondence cards comprise the following headings: name of organization; type of meeting; subject
dates (day, month, year); place (town, building where the meeting will be held); number of participants;
local organization committee (secretary, address); languages used (written, simultaneous or consecutive inter.
.. .
pretation from . into . .);reports (approximatedate of publication, publiste

10
 Mrs. Murra writes on this subject:‘Ialso have misgivings about attempting
to include information on publications in a calendar.These are two different
kinds of information, responding to different needs, and used in different
ways. Addition of publication information would further delay publication
of calendar information. Our experience indicates that meeting information
is wanted within ten days of its receipt by the issuing agency and faster if
possible. You may have observed that the World list gives the latest infor-
mation on meetings held in the month of issuance as well as later. It would
take considerably more staff to meet such a deadline if publication infor-
mation were included and,I think,result in a cumbersome tool.’
The UIA calendar, with its encyclopaedic character,and the two Library
of Congress calendars should perhaps be replaced by a series of calendars,
each covering a major subject,in which case one conference might appear
in several calendars.
Mr. Speeckaert does not consider that this would be desirable or even
possible,first because the majority of purchasers of a calendar of international
conferences wish to know about all conferences; secondly, because division
into separate subjects is often very difficult;and, lastly,because there would
certainly be sectors for which no one would take on the necessary work.
Mrs. Murra, for her part, observes that ‘the need for the single calendar
has been amply justified by many studentsof the problem. That it be divided,
either as separates,or within one cover by subjects would present many prob-
lems. Such an arrangement would not provide a place for interdisciplinary
meetings, for example,which are becoming more and more numerous,unless
entries were freely duplicated between parts (part I of the December issue of
the World list has some sixty such meetings). Publication of separate subject
lists would revert once again to fractionation of control which so many of us
have worked to eliminate’.

METHODS OF OBTAINING INFORMATION A B O U T

C O N F E R E N C E PUBLICATIONS

If librariesand documentation centres consult calendars,it is for the purpose of

establishingdirectcontact,at the earliestpossiblemoment,with theorganizations
responsible for conferences so as to obtain publications that interest them.l
This is because libraries and documentation centres must make conference
publications available to users as soon as they are published, and because,
if they do not send in their orders soon enough, they may easily discover that
some particular publication is out of print.
As w e have already said,therefore, the organizers of conferences should be
strongly urged to make provision,when printing,for a number of copies to
go to libraries; they can discover the needs of libraries by announcing their
publications sufficiently far in advance.
Some volumes are brought out by commercial publishing houses,a but
this does not seem to apply to the majority. If a large firm undertakes the
publishing, most libraries and documentation centres will be contacted by
its advertising network, but some volumes are published by the international
organization or by the national organization of the country in which the
P

I. Mrr.hlurra has called our attention to an unpublislied preliminary study on the availability ofcongress publi-
cations. This study was conducted by a provisional sub-committeeof the American Library Association’s Serials
Policy and Research Committee. The study is based on the views and experience of I I very large university
libraries. It is hoped that the sub-committee’s work will continue.
2. Out of a total of 122 proceedings announced for publication between July 1960and 1963 (these do not relate
solely to scientific meetings), 81 are published by the international organization itself, 2 1 by the national branch,
10 by commercial publishers and IO by other methods, including appearance in various magazines. See Inta-
notional associalions, 12th year, July 1960,no. 7, p. 427-31.)

21
conference is held, and libraries and documentation centres are apt to be
overlooked in the direct publicity undertaken by such bodies. It is a good idea
to put an advertisement in special periodicals. Proceedingspublished in perio-
dicals, whether they relate to the conference itself or to its publications, are
also valuable, though often appearing rather late; so, too, are abstracts and
even a mere entry in a bibliography.
Mrs. Murra emphasizes ‘the importance of indexing services,“Notes and
news”sections of periodicals and “Book notice”sectionswhere brief announce-
ments and annotated bibliographical references of proceedings often appear
long before proceedings are acquired and catalogued by libraries. It is almost
impossible to find them unless they have been systematically noted in a general
index such as those published by H.W.Wilson and others’.
UIA includes in its calendar the expected date of publication of the pro-
ceedings. It might be desirable to go even further,by includingin the calendar
all available information on forthcoming publications.1 A n appendix might
give information regarding publications subsequent to the opening of the
conference,by announcing them as soon as they are put on sale,or even before.
It should be remembered that it is not always easy to discover by whom the
papers presented at a conference or its proceedings have been published; it
may be an international body, a national body which changes with each
conference,a commercial firm or even a periodical.
In the July 1960issue of International association2 UIA listed,in chronological
order of the publication dates announced, the proceedings of conferences
held or to have been held between I June I 960 and 3 I December I 96I. Each
entry gave the name of the organization,the nature of the meeting, the subject
(where appropriate),the date,the place,and the publisher’sname and address.
The language used in each case was that in which the informationwas received.
These particulars were obtained from a special survey conducted by UIA
among conference organizers.
Aware of the difficulties encountered by such organizers in bringing the
publication of conference proceedings to the knowledge of the general public,
and of the corresponding difficulties encountered by librarians and others
who wish to purchase or consult such proceedings, UIA decided to issue two
further publications.
The first of these is a monthly current list* beginning in January 1961,
and indicating, according to the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) ,
any proceedings of international meetings just published in volume form or
printed in journals. The second publication is to be an annual bibliography
of proceedings. Since the majority of these are printed over a period of one
to three years after the conference, the first volume of this annual biblio-
graphy will deal with the proceedings of conferences held in 1957.UIA felt
it would be more useful to begin with the latest works. Funds permitting,
writes Mr. SpeeckaerP it might be possible, simultaneously with the publi-
cation of bibliographies for 1958 and subsequent years, to work back and
cover the conference years 1956,1955,etc.6
It should also be mentioned that,with a view to facilitatingtheultimatepubli-
I. See above, page 168.Miss Barbara Kyle (London) considers that: ‘Each issue of the calendar should complete
the story of any conference previously announced, with information as to where the documentation may be
obtained, together with the lists of those in attendance.’
2. International associations, 12th year, no. 7, July 1960.
3. Bibliographical current list of papers, reports and proceedings of international meetings/Bibliographie cowante des documents,
comptcs rendus et actes des rhnions internationales. Brussels, January 1961-.
4. Bulletin des bibliothkques de France, 5e annte, no .II, novembre 1960,p. 418.
5. For the year 1953, it will be possible to use the bibliography of the documents issued by international non-
governmental meetings held in 1953,which are preserved in the Library of Congress. Documents of international
meetings, 1953. Compiled by Robert W. Schaaf. Washington, International Organizations Section (Library
of Congress), 1959. 27 cm., ivf210 p,

22
cation ofa bibliography ofproceedings offormerconferences,UIA is drawing up
the fullestpossible list ofall internationalconferences,in the widest sense of the
term, held from the earliest date for which records are available,up to 194.0.
This is expected to appear in four volumes,the first,already issued, covering
the period 1681to 18gg,1the second covering the period 1900to 1919,the
third, the period 1920to 1929, and the fourth,the period 1930to 1939.
The first publication-the current list of proceedings of international
meetings-is particularly interesting and urgently needed. It will ease the
task of libraries, which cannot always establish direct contact with the inter-
national organizations as the Library of Congress, the Bibliothhque Nationale
and the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek,for instance,are able to do.
Both publications will be a valuable addition to conference bibliography.
The Belgian Bibliographical Commission has published Le ripertoire annuel
des comptes rendus de congrds scientgques, 1958and 1959,by Julian Van Hove.2
In accordance with the recommendationmade in 1953by the International
Federation of Library Associations (IFLA)the Commission des PCriodiques
established as part of the Association des Conservateurs d’Archives,de Biblio-
thkques,et de MusCes de Belgique,has decided to assemble annually national
documentation relating to conference proceedings. In addition, the &ole
Provinciale de Bibliothgcaires du Brabant has undertaken to prepare a retro-
spective catalogue for Belgium.
Mr. Van Hove’s publication includes the proceedings of conferences orga-
nized in Belgium during 1958and 1959,and those held earlier, or in foreign
countries,but whose proceedings were published in Belgium in 1958 or 1959.
This initiative is worthy of note, but one may question the desirability of
grouping the conferences held in one particular country and those whose
reports appear in that country.8
Most libraries seem to be informed directly by the international orga-
nizations about conference publications, but periodicals appear to be an
important source of information.
The correspondencemaintained by a fewbig librarieswith the internationalor-
ganizationswould become practicallyunnecessarywerethere a currentbibliogra-
phy to provide librarieswith allnecessaryinformation regarding all publications.

T H E P L A G E O F C O N F E R E N C E PUBLICATIONS IN LIBRARIES
The majority oflibraries place a separate order for each publication;it should
be noted,incidentally,that there may be financial regulations which prevent
a library from committing itself to the purchase of a work which is not certain
to be published. It seems difficult to decide whether-as in France in the case
of university libraries-the libraries prefer to order from a bookseller when the
internationalorganization is itself the publisher. As a general rule,the pubh-
cations of a conference are offered for sale. The libraries are equally divided
in their views as to prices,some finding them high and others reasonable.
While few conclusions can be drawn from the vague information available
concerning the number of publicationsreceived,the impression is that libraries
do not buy the publicationsof a very largenumber of conferences.The Library
of Congress list of conferences held in 1953 mentions 250 meetings of non-
I. Union of International Associations. International congresses, 1681 to 1899. Full list. Brussels, 1960, 76 p. French
and English analytical index. (Vol.8 of the series Documents for the study of international non-governmental
organizations. (UIA publication no. 164.)
2. Bruxelles. Commission Belge de Bibliographie, 1960,60 p. (Bibliographia belgica, 49), and 1961,89 p. (Biblio-
graphia helgica, 58).
3. At the twenty-fifthsession of the Council of IFLA, held in Warsaw in September 1959, the Committee on
Periodicals expressed the hope that, following the example of the Belgian National Eibliographical Commission,
every country would publish annual lists of conferences held on its territory, and of the proceedings published
in the year concerned.
governmentalorganizations,but the appendix lists I 77 meetings ofnon-govern-
mental organizationswhose publicationsare not to be found in that library.
According to Mrs. Murra, the Library of Congress has identified, and
recorded in its files, 1,008 conferences held in 1953, 3,249 in 1957,and 2,377
in 1958 (up to 28 April); and in an article published in 1958,she estimates the
annual number of international meetings at approximately 5,000.1 In this
connexion, Mrs. Murra points out that the World list of future international
meetings mentioned 2,796 meetings for 1960; this does not account for all
meetings held,but only for those ofwhich the Library ofCongress was informed
in time to announce them. It is hoped to arrive in 1961at a figure giving a
better approximation of the total number of meetings held (including all
meetings reported too late to have been announced before).
These figures are definitely higher than those given in International ano-
ciations. In an article by Genevitve Devillt,2on ‘Les rtunions internationales
en 1958’, which appeared in 1959, the number of international meetings is
seen to average about 1,100,from 1953 to 1957; an increase of 27 per cent
was recorded between 1957and 1958 (725 in 1950,715in 1951,996 in 1952,
1,086in 1953,1,125in 1954,I,I 18 in 1955,1,127in 1956, and 1,432in 1958).
GenevitveDevil16 has since published a second statisticalstudy,3 entitled ‘L’Cvo-
lution des rtunions internationales’.In I960, UIA recorded I ,899 meetings.
These figures suggest: (a) that statistics relating to conferences (covering
all subjects) should be compiled with greater precision; (b) that calendars and
bibliographies should almost certainly extend their investigations to include
a higher percentage of the existing meetings; (c) that many conferences are
probably represented by their publications in only a small number of libraries.
Hence the value of union catalogues for conferences,such as Gregory, and
the list published as an appendix to the World list of scient@ periodicals, rgoo-
1950,3rd ed. (~gp),though the latter is not extensive. The Swedish annual
union catalogue has included a special section on conferences ever since 1956.
When general union catalogues are confined to foreign publications,only the
publications of conferences which appear in foreign countries are included.
The United States National union catalogue mentions only such conference
publicationsas have been published and catalogued separately.
Libraries devote their chief attention to volumes of papers published after a
conference and to those containing proceedings, except when the volume of
papers is put on sale prior to the conference. It is much less usual for them to
possess the other documents of a conference,unless the library or documen-
tation centre,or some member of the staff,has subscribed to, or attended, the
conference.
This is why most of the publications acquired by libraries are in printed
form,mimeographing being more or less confined to publicationsissued before
a conference. This bears out the findings of the UIA survey, which showed
a ratio of30 printed publicationsto 4 mimeographed.

S T A N D A R D I Z A T I O N OF TITLE P A G E S

It would in some cases be easier to list the publications of internationalmeet-

ings if there were some degree of standardization in the layout of the title
page; librarians would welcome this.
The publicationsofa conferenceshould alwayshave a titlepage headed by the
nameofthe conference,which should not changefrom onemeeting to the next.If
the name does change,the reminder,‘formerlythe conference of...’should be

I. ‘Futures’in international meetings, in: College and research libraries, vol. IQ, no. 6, November 1958, p. 445-50.
2. International associations, 11th year, No. 6, June 1959, p. 441-7.
3. ibid., 13th year, no. 3, March 1961,p. 152-8.

24
added to facilitatecataloguing.A list of previous conferencesand related publi-
cations (givingprices) on one of the title pages would also be useful in many
cases,as a means ofcheckingwhether a set is complete,and discovering any gaps.
IS0 TC/46is now studying a preliminary draft international recommen-
dation on title pages,which includes a special paragraph 01-1 symposia:
‘ IO. Special case of a symposium.
‘The foregoing rules (these are general rules) are equally applicable to a
symposium,provided that the following provisions are added:
‘10.1 The person or persons responsible shall be named.
‘10.2The title ofthe publicationshall be the sameas that ofthe symposium.If?
forsomereason,it is necessaryforthe two titlesto be different,both shallbe given.
‘10.3 The full name of the main editor or author shall be given.
‘10.4The date and place of the symposium shall also be given.’
This preliminary draft is to be revised and extended.
W e believe that to the word ‘symposium’,the words ‘congress’,‘confe-
rence’,etc., should be added and that the publications of all such meetings
should be taken into consideration.
Paragraph 10.2 should be read in relation to what has been said above about
the individual title of a conference.
Even if the name of an international organization which is organizing or
sponsoring the meeting does not appear in the actual title of the conference,
it should be given on the title page;it is not enough merely to mention it in
the introduction,as was done in the Proceedings of the International Study Confe-
rence on Classijicationfor Information Retrieval, held at Beatrice W e b b House, Dorking
(England) 13-17M a y 1957,which were published by ASLIB in 1957 with no
mention ofFID;the fact that this was ‘astudy Conference of the International
Federation for Documentation’is referred to only in the introduction.
As was noted in the first part of this study, the terminology relating to
meetings is confusing;the same may be said of the terminology used for publi-
cations;for while the word ‘paper’(or sometimes ‘report’or ‘contribution’)
is used to cover simply the papers read, the term ‘proceedings’may be used
either for a publication comprising the papers together with the discussions,
resolutions, etc., or for a publication containing only the discussions and
resolutions. Moreover, terms other than ‘proceedings’ are liable to be used,
such as, in English,‘summaryrecords’or ‘transactions’.l
Itshould also be mentioned that as genericterms used inperiodicals,thewords
Bericht,Compte rendu,Jointreport,Proceedings,Procks-verbaux,Rapport,Report,Ren-
diconto and Sitzzingsbericht were considered by IS0TC/@with a view to the stan-
dardizationoftheirabbreviatedforms,atthemeeting held inLondoninJune1960.

P R O B L E M S 01’ C A T A L O G U I N G

The cataloguing of conferences and the drawing up of bibliographical entries

gives rise to certain problems touched upon by the Library of Congress in its
reply to the survey conducted by FID.
A conference should always be considered as a bibliographical unit. In
other words,it is not enough to make out an index card only for the first confe-
rence of a series; one card should be made for the first, and others for the
second, third, fourth conferences,and so on, even if there is not a separate
title for each of them and if nothing except a change of number distinguishes
any one of them from its predecessor or its successor.
A reader should be able to find a conference in the author catalogue,under
1. In French, procds-uerbuus and nctes.
2. AS to the method of dealing with congress publications at the Rihliotli&pe Eationale, Paris, see the article
by M.Dumas and F. Gaston-Cherauin Bidletin des bibliothdques de France, he annee, no. 2, fkvrier 1959, p. 89-97.
its official name,under the name of the organization,if any,mentioned in the
title of the conference,and under the special title of the conference,if any.
Speaking more generally, where the title of the volume does not begin by
the entry-word ‘Conference), ‘Meeting’,‘Symposium’,etc., it is helpful to
make a secondary anonymous entry,under the first word ofthe title.
A reader should also be able to trace a conference by looking up its subject
in the subject catalogue.
Without wishing to offer it as a model, we may mention that the French
standard NF Z 44-060 (octobre 1955) Les catalogues al$habNiques d’auteurs et
d’anonymes. Choix des vedettes. Collectivit~s-auteursincludes an appendix on confe-
rences which might serve as the basis for international standardization.
It was not possible to consider the question of conferences at the Inter-
national Conference on Cataloguing Principles organized by IFLA in Paris
in October 1961,but the agreement reached on principles may facilitate the
preparation of special measures of standardization for conferences.
In their replies to the FID survey, the libraries mentioned many requests
received from readers, but we will not venture to deduce any general conclu-
sions from these. It must be remembered that a number of scholars possess the
publications of conferences they have attended,or offprints of papers relating
to their own subjects sent to them by the authors of those’papers,so that they
do not need to apply to libraries.

B I B L I O G R A P H I C A L SCANNINQ
General libraries do not scan conference publications,and the papers presented
are not shown in the catalogues unless they are sent in as separate booklets or
offprints. It rests with the compilers of bibliographies to provide information
on the subject either in indicative or in informative abstracts;but they do not
do so systematically, and indeed cannot, unless they receive all material
published by conferenceson their own particular subjects,which is not always
the case. Documentation centres undertake fairly detailed scanning in respect
of conferences dealing with their special fields.
If every paper were accompanied by an author’ssummary (and this should
be insisted upon) and if the papers,or even the summaries by themselves,were
sent to the bibliographies immediately upon publication, the interval between
a conference and the mention of its publications in bibliographies or abstract-
ing journals could be reduced to a minimum.
Users can obtain information about a conference not only from the text
ofits papers and the official proceedings,as indicated or abstracted in a general
manner in bibliographies or dealt with by reviews in periodicals (such reviews
are not easy to trace unless they are themselves abstracted), but also from the
unofficial reports which are published in periodicals, often before the official
proceedings appear. These unofficialreports are in some cases ofa very general
nature,but in other instances they offer a brief abstract,if not of all the papers,
at least of the most important among them: they themselves are sometimes
abstracted in bibliographies.
The study of the International Mineral Dressing Congress, Stockholm,
September 1957, by Mr. Ohman, vice-presidentof FID,contains a list of
20 unofficial reports on the congress itself, published in 16 different perio-
dicals belonging to 8 countries;these were important reports, for 1 2 of them
were at least 3,000 words in length, and 5 of them contained respectively
5,000,5,200, 6,500, 9,000 and 19,000 words. The countries concerned were
Canada (2 reports), Czechoslovakia (I),France (2), Germany (5), USSR (I),
United Kingdom (4),United States of America (4)and Yugoslavia (I).These
reports were themselves abstracted, 38 abstracts appearing in g abstracting
journals, including the Referativnyj Zurnal metallurgija (I 3 abstracts) and the

26
Cvetnye metally (9 abstracts). It is surprising to note the space thus devoted in
abstracting journals to unofficial reports.
After the publication of Progress in mineral dressing (July 1958), 22 reviews
of it were published: 18of these are substantial reviews,ranging from 100to
800 words,4 are brief notices under headings such as 'Newbooks' and 'Neuer-
scheinungen'. They were published in periodicals of I 3 different countries:
Austria (I),Belgium (I), Canada (I), France (2), Germany (4),India (I ,
Italy (2), Poland (I), South Africa (I),Sweden (I), United Kingdom (4,
United States (2) and Yugoslavia (I).The volume was also abstracted in
i
six abstractingjournals:one in Germany (Stahl und Eisen), one in the United
Kingdom (IMM abstracts), three in the United States ( A S M review of metal
literature, Battelle technical review and Flotation index), and one in the USSR
(Cvetyny metally), but it was ignored in the Referativnyj 2urnal and the Chemisches
<entralblatt.
Four abstracting periodicals gave separate abstracts of the papers; 31 out
of 34 were dealt with in Chemical abstracts, 6 in the Bulletin analytique du Centre de
documentation side'rurgique (these abstracts were reproduced in the Bulletin signa-
le'tigue du CNRS), 2 in IMM abstracts, which had abstracted the other 32
papers as preprints (the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, which orga-
nized the congresses of 1952 and 1960,was particularly interested) and 7 in
the Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute (United Kingdom). None of the papers
was abstracted in Germany or in the USSR.
Through indicative or informative bibliographies, users can also obtain
information regarding conference papers which are published separately,on
the initiative of their authors,in various periodicals,whether this is the sole
publication or constitutes a kind of reprint of the paper as it appeared in the
actual conference proceedings.
In his study of the International Mineral Congress,Mr. O h m a n refers to a
number of reprints (seven papers were published in the months following
the congress in different periodicals, with the permission of the congress
secretariat), all with an indication that they were read at the Stockholm
congress (this essential indication should always appear). Fifty-oneabstracts
were made of these reprints,which, with one exception,appeared before the
end of 1957, i.e., over a year before the volume of proceedings was issued.
The various articles were abstracted four, five, six, eight and even as many
as twelve times. Mr. Ohman draws the justifiable conclusion that a paper has
a better prospect of being abstracted if it appears in a periodical than if it is
published in the congress proceedings. In respect of three articles, however,
these abstracts appeared in Chemical abstracts after three and seven months;
five articles were abstracted in the Chemisches Zentralblatt after 8, 8, 9, 1 2 and
I 5 months respectively,and seven articles in the Referativnyj iurnal metallurgija
after 3,9, IO, IO, IO, 1 2 and 13months.
Mr. C. W. Hanson,l in co-operation with Marian Janes, made a survey
of the coverage given in English abstracting journals to the publications of
IO conferences,all issued in 1957 (except one, which was published in 1958)
and containing 386 papers in all. Lists of abstractingjournals were also made
for each conference publication, and these journals were scanned with the
help ofthe author indexes for the years 1957,1958 and 1959.
No abstracts were made of the papers of two of these conferences. In the
case of four,the abstracts were made, not from the papers as they appeared
in the conference volume, but from the same papers as published elsewhere.
In all, there were found to be I I 7 abstracts for 386 papers (i.e.,30 per cent),
but only 79 (20 per cent) abstracts from the papers as printed in the actual
conference volume.
I. Hanson, C. W :Janes, Marian. Coverage by abstracting journals of conference papers, 3oumal of documentation,
vol. 17, no. 3, September 1961.

27
 In addition,all the papers oftwo conferencesand severalofa third,I 23 in all,
were mentioned individually,and indexed without being abstracted.The total
number of papers abstracted and/ormentioned was 218(56percent) outof386.
In the course of research,five reports covering an entire conference were
noted. Some of these included references to individual papers. In short,over
two-thirdsof the papers published in the reports of IO conferences were not
abstracted in the abstractingjournals scanned, and nearly half of them were
neither abstracted nor mentioned.

‘LOST’ P A P E R S
A conference may, however, include ‘lost’papers, of which F. Liebesny has
made a studycunfortunately not full enough-entitled Lost information:
unpublished conference papers. His survey covered 383 papers submitted to four
nation-wide conferences held in the United States between 1948 and 1950
(distant dates were selected,to allow for the very long delays in publication).
O f these papers,48.5per cent were never ublished.
Of the 383 papers, 197 (51.5per cent7 were published, and of these 197,
63 (32 per cent) appeared in periodicals other than those in which the
summaries had been printed. One hundred and fourteen papers were
published between I and 12 months after the meeting, 63 between 13 and
24 months, 14 between 25 and 36 months,and 6 after more than 37 months.
Four and a half years elapsed before two of the papers were published. Sixteen
of the papers published (8per cent) appeared in periodicals issued by the firm
in which the authors of the original papers were employed.
Liebesny adds that almost half the information presented to a conference
is thus lost, unless some preprints are available or a copy can be obtained
direct from the author.
According toLiebesny,thisdeplorablesituationis made evenworse by the rules
ofthe abstractingjournals.For instance,while Chemical abstractsgiveslonglists of
titlesand authors,Science abstractsincludesno abstractsofpapers read atmeetings,
unless a summary of appreciable length is published in the ordinary way.
InEngland thepositionis thesame,butas theunpublished papersare not even
indicated by abstracts,failure to publish them (only IO per cent of papers are
published in full) does not,according to Liebesny,cause any disappointment.
It may be understandable that papers should not be published, but the
organizers should always insist that a copy of every paper be deposited before
the conference,and should take steps to preserve these copies. It would then
always be possible to apply to the conference organizers for a photostat or
microcopy of the text.

CONCLUSIONS

This study should be supplemented,but it is nevertheless possible to propose

a number of solutions which-after discussion and amendment-might help
to improve the quality and availability of conference publications.
The value of conferences might be increased by making a more careful
selection of papers and by drawing,if possible, a clearer distinction between
the different categories of papers; this might be done on the lines proposed
by the International Council of Scientific Unions for texts published in scien-
tific journals and periodicals, where a distinction is made between papers,
news and progress repork2
I. Proceedings of thc Infernational Confermcc on Scieatgc Infirmation. Washington, D.C.,Nonember 16-21 1958. Wash-
ington, D.C., National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, 1959. vol. I, p. 474-9.
2. See p. 3 of G. A. Boutry, La cooptration internationale en mati6re de bibliographies analytiques et signal&-
tiques scientifigues.In: FID, 26a Confertncia geral. Rio dc janciro. Julho 1960.Reports, 25 p.

28
 To make the proceedings of a conference useful to research workers, and
particularly to those unable to attend the conference itself, arrangements
should be made:
I. T o publish,if possible,all papers (accompaniedin every case by an author’s
summary) before the conference; the text of unpublished papers should be
available on request.
2. To publish the proceedings as soon as possible after the conference,within
a year at the latest,and, in this respect,to consider the advantages, from
the point of view of diffusion,of publishing them in a periodical.Members
of the Abstracting Board of the International Council of Scientific Unions
have proposed that no grant be made by an international union or a
government to any conference unless its organizers pledge themselves
beforehand to publish the proceedings within a year.
3. To send all conference publications, immediately they appear, to the
secretariats of the internationalbibliographies concerned,so that not only
the volumes considered as a whole, but each individual paper, may be
indicated or abstracted (using the author’ssummary).
Another indispensable measure is for a single calendar to give all particulars
of all conferences and for some appropriate means to be found of giving infor-
mation about publications even before they are issued.
It would be an advantage for union catalogues to show in which libraries
in a particular country the conference publications are to be found.
Standardization would also be very helpful, whether in respect of the ter-
minology of conferences and their publications, the style of the publications
and more particularly the layout of the title page,or the rules for cataloguing
them;some efforts to this end are already being made or are contemplated.
All the above measures are feasible, but as w e have already said, their
application depends on a spirit of co-operationamong the internationalorga-
nizations.
Conference organizers have perhaps hitherto paid more attention to the
conference itself, as an occasion for meeting, than to its publications and its
long-term influence in the field of scientific literature. W e hope that this
analysis of the problem may give them a greater awareness of their respon-
sibilities as regards scientific information.
The Centralny Instytut Informacji Naukowo-Techniczneji Ekonomicznej
in Warsaw has expressed the hope that, through the supranational organi-
zations, organizers of scientific conferences will take this report into consi-
deration,and will discuss it and consider it carefully in internationalscientific
organizationsand scientific documentation centres.
In conclusion,it may be added that in the opinion of that institute, most of
the foregoing problems could be solved by establishing a clearing house on
scientific conferences and their publications under the auspices of Unesco
or of FID. That clearing house would file either the original or, if that were
impossible, a copy, of every conference publication. Its duties might be
extended to cover national conferences. It would facilitate the mention and
abstractingofconference publicationsin the different bibliographies.
[A.18941$0.50; 2/6(stg.) ; 2 F