An overview of the abstracting and indexing services in China

An overview of the abstracting

and indexing services in China

Lei Zeng

The first abstracting and indexing (A&l) service in China celebrated its thirty-year birthday in 1988. However, it would be a mistake to consider the growth of A&l services in China in the same way as other countries because A&l services in China not only had to start from zero, but also had a rebirth after a period

of regression; they are not commercial agencies; at the end of 1980s, almost all of the A&l services produced in China are printed versions, while computerized production is in the stage of experiment. It is

the purpose of this paper to present a picture of the development of A&l services in China and identify some of their problems in order to encourage serious attention to their status.

Historical perspective

a period of exploration: 1956-1965

Although the history of abstracting and indexing in

China may be traced to the Han dynasty of 2,000 years

ago, with the rich collection of bibliographical reference

books containing abstracts and indexes, A&I as

individual secondary information services in China were

conceived at the publishing of Machinery Abstracts and

Metallurgical Abstracts in 1957,1 during the second year

of the existence of the national information institution,

the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of

China (ISTIC).

One of the most notable events in the history of A&I in

China was the founding of the National Committee for

Scientific and Technical Literature Compilation and

Translation (NCSTLCT) in 1961. Like the founding of

NFAIS (National Federation of Abstracting and Index

ing Services) of the USA, the impetus toward forming

such a committee was a response to the challenge of

VINITI (All Union Scientific and Technical Institute) of

the USSR, which expanded greatly in the mid-1950s and

was publishing forty Referntivnyi Zhurnal (Journal of

Abstracts) serials2-3 covering most of the fields of pure

and applied science and technology.

The major purposes of the Committee were to develop

co-operative A&I production for the whole country and

to encourage the development of home-produced

secondary services. At that time, in 1961, only abstract

journals translated from Russian were produced,

representing almost half of the abstract journals pro

duced in the USSR at that time.4

During the following five years, A&I services in China

grew steadily under a co-operative plan made by the

Committee. The abstract journals were assigned to

individual information centers according to their par

ticular subject field and collections. The translation and

compilation of abstracts were separately completed in

information centers throughout the country and were

sent to the Committee, which published the resulting

translations of abstract journals and compilations of

individual abstracts under a co-operative plan.

In early 1966, 139 secondary information journals

were registered with the Committee. One hundred of

these were abstract journals, containing more than

700,000 items in 1965.' The remainder were indexes and

annotated bibliographies. The largest index was Index of

S&T literature, which was published in 30 sub-titles and

covered over 6,000 journals world wide.4

The first subject index for the abstracts was published

in 1964. It was a seven-year cumulative index for Metal

lurgical Abstracts with an average indexing depth of

approximately 3.5 index entries per document. Twenty-

seven other annual subject indexes were supposed to be

issued in 1966. However, this work was aborted because

of ten years of turbulence.1

TEN YEARS OF REGRESSION: 1966-1976

As soon as the Cultural Revolution began, all infor

mation serials were forced to cease. The NCSTLCT

disappeared quietly, without any announcement.

After 1972, a few A&I services attempted to restart

their work. However, these products were poorly

organized, with a low level of quality control.

RECOVERY AND RENASCENCE: 1977-1987

When NCSTLCT was reorganized in 1978, there was a

broken framework of A&I services. The situation was

even more severe than that in the 1950s because of the

lack of experienced professionals, the suspension of the

acquisition of documents from outside of the country,

and the disorder of existing A&I services.

The Indexer Vol. 17 No. 2 October 1990 99

AN OVERVIEW OF THE ABSTRACTING AND INDEXING SERVICES IN CHINA

At the fifth meeting of NCSTLCT in September 1978,

a proposal for establishing a system of secondary infor

mation retrieval serials in the country was debated as

part of the discussion of the 1979-1985 plan. As a result,

the Sub-Committee of Information Retrieval Serials was

founded. It would be in charge of organizing, planning,

and co-ordinating the print products for information

retrieval. The proposal was passed at the seventh meeting

in 1980 and was carried out rapidly in the whole

country.1 By the end of 1986, 219 A&l services were

being produced in China.5 This represents a 291%

increase over the 56 services recorded in 19816 and a 38%

increase over 19834 (see table 1).

Current status

At present there are more than 200 printed secondary

services available in China, published in several sets of

serials which include annotated bibliographies, abstracts,

and indexes (table 2). Most of the important science and

technology (S&T) fields now have their own secondary

services and cumulative indexes.

During the thirty years of existence of A&I services in

China, there has been an expansion in coverage of

bibliographical information in all S&T fields, the

abstracting and indexing processes are approaching

standardization, and computer-aided abstracting and

indexing is being developed. However, many problems

exist, such as duplication of entries, unsatisfactory access

points, time lags, etc. There is neither a core of serials nor

a core system. Therefore, none of the products has an

international status. These aspects retard Co-operation

with other countries and the establishment of computer-

based information retrieval systems in China.

Organizational patterns and interrelationships

PARENT INSTITUTES

It is necessary to understand that A&I services in

China are not commercial agencies; they report to and

get funding from their parent information institutes. All

funding for information services is from the government.

According to 1985 statistics, the total funding of

information services, related basic construction invest

ment, plus some special funding was about RMBY 2.6

billion (US$70 million). From 1980 to 1986 about

100,000 books and 16,000 periodical titles from all over

the world were acquired per year. This represents about

14% of the books and 16% of the periodicals published

throughout the world. In mainland China about 7,000

academic periodicals, 100,000 scientific papers and

reports, and 100,000 other materials are published

yearly.7

The present organizational structure of Chinese infor

mation systems consists of several nationwide systems.

The largest and most important system is the S&T

information institute system. It includes a national S&T

information center (Institute of Scientific and Technical

Information of China: ISTIC) and two parallel branches:

43 specialized information centers of all national

ministries, and their specialized branch centers (these

ministries report to the State Council of China); and 29

general information centers of the provinces and muni

cipalities and 219 information centers of the counties

(these information centers report to the local govern

ments but have professional cooperation with ISTIC).8

The patents information system, a specialized system, is

composed of a national patents information center and

64 provincial and municipal branches. All of them report

to the State Patent Bureau."

The standards information system is another spe

cialized system. It includes a core information center in

the China Research Institute of Standardization, and 150

branch information centers in all of the country."

China Academia Sinica document and information cen

ter system belongs to China Academia Sinica, which is

the highest and largest academic institution in China

with over 4,000 specialized branch institutes in the

country. The Document and Information Center is the

core of this information system. Over 4,000 integrated

library and information centers8 in all specialized

Table 1 Number of A&I services produced in China

Number of services identified

100 The Indexer Vol. 17 No. 2 October 1990


Table 2 Printed Chinese secondary services serials4

Geograph ic co vertigo Type Material coverage Notes

Bibliography of All foreign

Foreign S&T countries

Literature Collection

Bibliography of All foreign

Foreign Literature countries

Bibliography of

Chinese S&T

Literature

Patents Bulletin

Abstract Journals

People's Republic

of China

World wide

World wide

Bibliography of People's Republic

Books in print of China

in People's Republic

of China

Chinese Journal

and Newspaper

Index

People's Republic

of China

Annotated

bibliography

Annotated

bibliography

Annotated

bibliography

Abstracts &

annotated

bibliography

Abstracts &

annotated

bibliography

Bibliography

Index

Government reports:

proceedings; dissertations;

other special literature

Journal articles; scientific

reports; proceedings;

standards; government

reports

Journal articles; proceedings;

particular subject materials

Patents

All kinds of literature

Books

Collection of ISTIC

Books registered

in State Copyright

Bureau

Articles published in academic Legal publications

journals and newspapers

branches co-operate in acquisition, inter-library loan,

automation, etc. The system serves only users of the

China Academia Sinica.

University and college library systems arc important in

China. In China, there are no private universities or

colleges and the formal higher education was free till

1989. University funding comes from ministries and local

governments, and the library is seen as one of the

important parts of a university.

The public library system includes a national public

library, 33 provincial ones, and over 2,000 local public

libraries.9 The national library and a few provincial and

municipal libraries offer some information services.

CO-OPERATIVE ACTIVITIES

The co-operation among A&I services within China

reflects the information system's setup. Information cen

ters of national ministries and their specialized branch

centers produce abstract journals of their fields so that,

in China, most A&I services of applied science and

technology are produced in the information institute

system.

The China Academia Sinica document and informa

tion center system has been taking responsibility for

developing A&I services for the pure sciences for Chinese

literature. Since 1980, the system has developed 19

internal information networks, which are organized

according to cither the subject fields or geographical

areas. Nine A&I services issued by six of these specialized

networks co-operate in the national secondary informa

tion. A plan to establish a printed set of Chinese A&I

services for maths, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geo

graphy, biology and some newly developing sciences by

the year 1990 has also been announced. Foreign langu

age versions and machine-readable services for these

products will also be developed."1

Many A&I services produced in these two systems

have strong associations with their professional societies

and insist on their discipline-oriented approaches.

However, in the last few years, some services which

address only specific problems (e.g. pollution and

environment protection) have been developed. Most

recently, newer services began to cover social sciences

and humanities literature by the Social Science Docu

ment and Information Centers, which were founded as a

special branch of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The information systems for patents and standards



lend to stay with their collection-oriented approaches.

Before 1981, patent secondary information services were

separately produced by information institutes all over

the country, with little co-operation. This resulted in

much duplication of effort and incomplete coverage.

With the founding of the State Patent Bureau in 1981, all

A&I services for patent documents were assigned to the

information center of the Bureau. By 1985, the Patents

Bulletin had been issued in 45 volumes. Since 1986, this

series has included Chinese patents along with the

patents from more than ten countries and international

organizations. The total number of items each year is

approximately 400,000."

University and college libraries and information cen

ters are now contributing to a joint database containing

abstracts of journals published by the universities. Some

of the universities participating are parts of specialized

information networks that produce A&I compilations.

The public library system has been issuing general

bibliographies for books and selected journal and

newspaper articles for over thirty years. There are also a

few public libraries that produce mission-oriented

abstract journals. Public libraries also have some co

operative projects which tend to collection-oriented

approaches, such as union bibliographies for local

history materials and local collections, and other occa

sional publications.

An overall view of the macrocosm of A&I services in

China suggests that coverage is still short of the ideal of

complete co-operation and systemization. There is much

overlap and duplication of effort among the inter-system

A&I services. Take for example the heat treatment field;

almost the same set of abstracts appears in Machine

Building Abstracts (produced by the information center

of the Ministry of Machine-Building Industry) and

Metallurgical Abstracts: Metal Materials (produced by

the information center of the Ministry of Metallurgical

Industry). Meanwhile, some areas are not covered. Fur

ther, as was mentioned in the description of the current

status, there are several parallel A&I serials in China.

Unfortunately, they provide few cross references to each

other. Their overlap and division, as well as their co

ordination of efforts, are not clear.

International co-operation has improved since 1980

through exchanges and agreement between individual

secondary services. In 1984, the National Technical

Information Services (NTIS) in the United States signed

a new direct exchange protocol with China to promote a

greater flow of scientific and technical information

between the two countries. The National Agriculture

Library (NAL) arranged for a group of Chinese

librarians to tour American libraries and A&I services,

including the NAL and the Institute for Scientific Infor

mation (ISI).12

In 1985, at the Chinese Second National Indexing

Symposium, the progress of four international co-opera

tion projects was reported. The Information Institute of

China Nuclear Industry Ministry had a co-operation

project with the International Nuclear Information

System (INIS) to offer English abstracts for some

Chinese journals on nuclear research. The other three

reports were from the information institutes of China

Academy of Agriculture Science, the Ministry of Rail

ways, and the China Academy of Medical Science. As

well, 310 English language abstracts on medical and

aromatic plants were contributed by the South-China

Plant Research Institute of China Academia Sinica to the

Asian and Pacific Information Network on Medical and

Aromatic Plants (APINMAP).13

Characteristics of A &f publications

COVERAGE

Most of China's A&I services are based on transla

tions of the A&I services in other countries. In the first

five years, all Chinese abstract publications (50 titles in

1961) were merely Chinese versions of the Journal of

Abstracts published by VINITI in the USSR.4 Even in

1986, Chinese scholarly publishing made up less than a

third of the total titles in A&I services while the other

two thirds of items were still based on translations. The

ratio of translated items to home-made items was 6.1 to 1

(1,220,000 translated items to 200,000 Chinese items).10 It

is said that only one quarter of the Chinese S&T primary

literature is reported in the secondary information servi

ces.

This situation leads to lowering of the quality of A&I

services and shortens their usage. Firstly, because such

translated A&I products are not supported by a collec

tion of the primary documents, the staff cannot make

selections and adaptations based on knowledge of the

actual literature. Secondly, a translated abstract based

on secondary information is not equal to an abstract of

an original document. There are many possibilities of

misunderstanding the original meaning of a paper. And,

it is often not easy to create an appropriate translation

for the condensed and almost isolated sentences of an

abstract. Thirdly, users are not satisfied with abstracts

which are composed of isolated sentences translated

from all kinds of foreign languages. Also, how valuable

is it to alert users to information in a foreign language

when they can't read it and there are no translations

available? Lastly, it is difficult to find A&I professionals

who not only have specialized knowledge and one or

more foreign languages but also have information

science backgrounds. In fact, this is almost impossible in

China. As a result, a large number of abstractors are

from foreign language schools and have little training in

information processing and no specialized subject

knowledge. Table 3 shows the backgrounds of informa

tion professionals in one ministry. A low percentage had

library and information science backgrounds (less than



4%), and a rather high percentage had foreign language

backgrounds (29%).14

Time lag

The average time lag between the publication date of

Chinese literature and its appearance in Chinese A&I

services is more than one year,1 but some services include

literature that is two or three years old.15 The time lag is

much longer for translated abstracts because of the

complicated acquisition and translation processes.

Access

Convenience of access to A&I services was neglected

for many years. Because the indexes of the original

publication are no longer useful after translation and

compilation of the abstracts, new indexes are needed.

Unfortunately, most of the A&I services in China did not

offer necessary title indexes and subject indexes at all

until indexes were required by the NCLCT in 1983. So,

for many years, the only subject access was provided by

the tables of contents of abstract journals.

More and more attention has been paid to subject

indexing by professionals since 1983 because it is con

sidered to be a basic element of the computer-based

information retrieval systems which will be established in

China. Three national symposiums on subject indexing

theories and methods have been held by the China

Society for Scientific and Technical Information. Subject

indexing courses have been offered in library schools and

many information centers. In the printed A&I services,

the average indexing depth is 2.5 to 3 entries per item.

The types of entry are mostly pre-coordinatcd subject

headings and single keywords. However, the quality of

the indexes is not good enough. For example, many

index headings refer to fifty or even hundreds of items,

and there are seldom cross-references.

SALES

Sales of printed A&I products do not match expec

tation based on the size of the potential market. Take for

instance, the medical profession. In 1983, there were

196,000 medical units with 4,090,000 professionals,

including 6,547 hospitals in the cities and 2,340 hospitals

in the counties all over the country. However, only 1,732

copies of the Bibliography of Chinese S&T literature:

medical science were sold, and only 1,300 copies of

Bibliography of foreign S&T literature: medical science.

Although this can be partly explained by the lack of

information awareness by the professionals, the publica

tion policies of the services are also responsible. Both of

them divide all items of medical science into fifteen broad

topics. Each has around 330 pages divided into three or

four volumes. Since this service is sold altogether in such

large volume and at an expensive price, and the contents

cover such broad areas beyond the needs of many special

units, sales do not match the expected number of users.

No wonder that in 1984, the Bibliography suffered a loss

of RMBY 303.49 (about $77) for each issue.15

Abstracts and indexes as by-products produced by

non-A&I professionals are developing rapidly. They

include author abstracts, abstracting in publications, and

pre-publication abstracts. Since most of them are based

on the Chinese primary literature, they are very import

ant information sources and are welcomed by the public.

Supports for Adi services

APPROACHES TO STANDARDIZATION

Since the founding of the National Standardization

Technical Committee of Documentation in 1979, 25

national standards have been issued. A national commit

tee and several sub-committees were set up correspond

ing to the format of ISO/TC 46. Sub-Committee No. 6 is

in charge of the standardization of information retrieval



services. In addition to carrying out existing ISO

standards, a set of standards relevant to Chinese A&I

services has been created and applied since 1982

(table 4).l5

Table 4 National standards relevant to A&I services

GB3468-83 General rules of compilation and editing

of secondary information publications.

(1983)

GB3469-83 Codes of document types and media.

(1983)

GB3792.1-83 General rules of bibliographical

description. (1983)

GB3793-83 Rules of bibliographical description of

secondary information publications

(1983)

GB3860-83 Rules for subject indexing. (1983)

GB4894-85 Information and documentation

terminology: basic glossary (1985)

GB6447-86 Rules for abstracting. (1986)

GB7714-87 Rules of bibliographical description of

bibliographical references. (1987)

ESTABLISHING CHINESE THESAURI

The development of indexing thesauri started in 1974

when a general thesaurus, Chinese thesaurus, was

designed to provide a working vocabulary in all fields of

human knowledge. This ten-volume thesaurus contains

approximately 109,000 terms; it covers all subjects,

which are organized into fifty-eight broad subject fields.

In the decade 1974 to 1984, approximately twenty

thesauri devoted to special areas were developed. During

the last four years (1985-89), the number of special

thesauri has doubled, while more are being planned or

under development.17

In spite of a later start in thesaurus development than

other developed countries, China benefits a lot from

experiences abroad, as well as from the standardization

of indexing languages in the world. In addition to

implementing international standards and developing

national standards for thesauri, in 1979 the National

Standardization Technical Committee of Documen

tation recommended that all special thesauri should

consider establishing compatibility with the Chinese

Thesaurus. Most of the Chinese special thesauri

developed after 1980 used the Chinese Thesaurus as their

basic reference source; some of them also considered

compatible approaches to other thesauri in related fields.

Almost all thesauri compiled by information centers of

ministries have similar principles in design. They are

post-coordinated, discipline-oriented, and suitable for

both manual and mechanized retrieval.

IMPROVING PRIMARY RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND

SHARING

In China, half of all library and information services

are in Beijing, while the rest are unevenly distributed in

large cities and the coastal areas. Co-ordination and co

operation among library and information systems have

been poorly developed, resulting in limited resources on

the one hand and much duplication on the other. For

instance, both the national public library and the

national information institute have acquisitions of

around 10,000 periodicals from other countries, but

more than 5,000 of these titles are duplications. When

the Chinese began having access to improved secondary

services and on-line international bibliographic search

ing, they found that 50%-70% of the primary literature

they searched was not available in China. Using on-line

retrieval systems was just a way to identify biblio

graphies.5

Co-operative activities spread first among some local

information centers and in the internal system of the

China Academia Sinica and later extended to the univer

sity system. In October 1987 a co-ordination committee

on the level of the ministry information centers was

founded, which included members of 11 ministries and

the state bureaux of archives, standards, and patents.

The goals of the committee are to develop co-ordination

of acquisitions and bibliographic announcement, inter-

library loan for foreign publications, and computer-

based information retrieval systems.18

EXPERIMENTS IN AUTOMATIC INDEXING AND ABSTRACTING

The applications of new technology are continuing to

have a significant impact on the production of secondary

products. As soon as the problem of Chinese character

input and output was solved around 1985, micro

computers began to be widely used in information cen

ters. But, the problem of Chinese text recognition and

parsing by computer is still unsolved, so that China has

not been able to benefit from automatic indexing and

abstracting software developed by other countries.

During recent years, many experiments have been

undertaken, such as automatic title indexing and auto

matic indexing, machine translating, automatic multi-

language processing, full-text retrieving, computer-aided

thesaurus construction, and so on. Almost all subject-

indexing experiments were carried out on personal com

puters with software such as dBASE III Chinese version,

and were based on self-established small databases.

The first computer-aided abstract journal was Chinese



Medicine Abstracts which was tested from 1982 to 1983

and published from 1984 by ISTIC and the Information

Institute of the State Bureau of Medicine Bureau. It uses

a TK70 computer and is based on a full-text database of

the Computer Retrieval Center for Chinese Medicine

Materials. The current experimental effort of ISTIC is to

produce a computer-aided Bibliography of Chinese Pro

ceedings and a Bibliography for current foreign collec

tions.19

Establishing Chinese machine-readable databases

DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER-BASED INFORMATION

RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS IN CHINA

The development of computer-based information

retrieval in China may be traced to 1975 with the

experiment of SDI services based on machine-readable

tapes. There was not much improvement until Chinese

user interfaces became available for microcomputers in

the 1980s. By the end of 1982 there were 69 services either

in the experimental or implementation stage. All of them

were based on the 32 machine-readable databases

introduced from foreign countries, such as INSPEC,

GRA, WPI, etc.14 In 1983, a nationwide S&T informa

tion retrieval system was put into the computer appli

cation plan and the software producing plan by the

China State Council. The goal in the period of "the

seventh five-year plan" is to establish an on-line retrieval

network, which will be composed of one national infor

mation center, and several specialized and regional cen

ters, to develop a set of bibliographic, full-text, and fact

databases, and to increase the availability of on-line

retrieval services throughout the country.7

By 1988, databases introduced from other countries

had increased to fifty-two, and these contained more

than 2 million items each year. The total number of SDI

users is over 3,000, with over 10,000 SDI subject topics.14

In 1980, 11 information centers of ministries set up an

international on-line retrieval terminal in Hong Kong

which connected with DIALOG and ORBIT. Two years

later, two telex terminals connected with DIALOG and

ORBIT were opened in Beijing and a terminal connected

with ESA-IRS was added in Beijing in September 1983.

Sixty-three terminals in 35 cities have been set up.

During recent years, more than 500 databases of foreign

countries have been made available through nine inter

national information retrieval systems.20

Since 1981, six national conferences and two interna

tional ones on computer-based information retrieval

have been held in China. Hundreds of academic papers

and experimental reports were presented to these

conferences.

DEVELOPMENT OF CHINESE DATABASES

The development of information systems in China has

special characteristics. Almost all computers and soft

ware are imported from abroad. Terminals for on-line

retrieval are also based on the databases outside of

China. It is clear that there is little possibility to change

such a situation completely in the near future. The key to

the improvement of information systems in China is to

develop Chinese databases.

According to a report given in 1989 by Mr Wang Ting-

jung, head of the China State Information Bureau, 21

foreign bibliographical databases have been built up

from the products of foreign countries. These databases

contain 9,390,000 records. Thirty-seven Chinese biblio

graphy databases either in English or in Chinese have

also been developed and hold a total of 400,000 records.5

In addition to bibliographical databases, full-text

databases and fact databases have been developed in

recent years, such as the macroeconomics general

database, the legal documents full-text database, the

database of scientific product trade information, and

so on.

Although great changes have taken place in database

production in recent years, there are obstacles in the way

of their further development:

(1) Most of them are tested and used on micro

computers, which, of course, are not the appropriate

hardware for middle-sized or large databases.

(2) They are also suffering from the organizational

patterns of current information systems. Some overlaps,

duplications, and omissions among databases exist

because of lack of co-operation among information

systems.

(3) Less attention has been paid to compatibility and

standardization of databases. It must be recognized that

existing systems face very serious difficulties if they are to

be expected to make networks among systems.

(4) There are no accepted criteria for the evaluation of

databases. Much evaluation and analysis have been

undertaken internally by individual services.

(5) Lack of database vendors and commercial market

ing concepts causes producers to put little emphasis on

user requirements and market needs. Databases that

stopped at the experimental stage because they did not

develop a market are not hard to find.

(6) In China, there is no designed unit that takes

responsibility for database services nor any funding

specifically for database production. All databases were

funded by temporary projects, research programs and all

kinds of research experiments. Funding and staffing of

any of the database producers are changeable.

(7) The most surprising fact is the loose connection

between the printed A&I services and machine-readable

databases. On the one hand, printed A&I products did

not become the bibliographical description foundations

of the Chinese machine-readable databases; on the other

hand, few of the Chinese machine-readable databases

have printed A&I versions. Subject access to these



databases is still poor both in printed A&I services and

machine-readable databases.

Alternatives for future developments

The first sensitive topic on A&I services development

in China is: What kind of structure or model should we

have?

The USSR, Japan and France have central control

models for their A&I services. In the mid-1950s, the

Japan Information Center of Science and Technology

(JICST) and VINITI had a number of staff, collection

and techniques similar to ISTIC. However, JICST and

VINITI have advanced very fast during the last thirty

years, with established reputations as well-organized

A&I systems.

The USA represents another kind of A&I service

structure. All of the services are produced by individual

companies and have strong commercial aspects.

West Germany stands between these two extremes.

The specialized centers produce A&I products separately

under a co-operative arrangement with a general co

ordinating center, GID.

There is a debate on whether China will use the

Russian model or the West German model.21 It seems

that the present structure of Chinese A&I service produc

tion is more or less similar to that of West Germany so

that there are more possibilities to take the West German

model than others. It was suggested that large combined

information units of particular subject fields be

organized across the existing organizational patterns and

that the State Information Bureau be in charge of co

operative approaches throughout the country. Further

co-operation and arrangement will be carried on within

the units.

Another sensitive topic is whether China needs to

establish a complete set of Chinese A&I services. Again,

there are alternatives available from other countries.

Since 1984, the information center of the French scien

tific research center, CDST, has expanded its PASCAL

database from French information to all of the world,

ignoring existing databases. In West Germany, an inter

national physics database, Physics briefs, developed in

the beginning of 1980s, has a very big overlap with

INSPEC.21 JICST and VINITI supply more examples of

establishing their own complete information databases.

In China, one opinion insists that only those A&I

services which occupy dominant positions in their fields

should be produced and they should be exchanged for

other existing A&I products in the world. With this idea,

there would not be many big changes which could not be

handled. The opposite opinion insists that, as such a big

country and with so much Chinese S&T production each

year as well as with such a special language, China

should have her own complete information system.

Specific areas of interest in recent years have been the

management of information systems and the organiza

tional structure of A&I services. These debates tend to

reach common answers, such as commercialization,

standardization, computerization, application of new

technologies, networking, and international co

operation.

It is clear that all these approaches not only rely on

further research in the theory and technology in this field

but also largely depend on recognition and support from

the government.

References

1. Yan, Qing-jia. Establishment of scientific and technical

secondary information journal system in our country.

Journal of Information Science No. 5, 1986, 34-7.*

2. Rigby, Malcolm. The history of NFAIS 1958-1971. In

Abstracting and indexing services in perspective. M. Lynne

Neufeld et al, ed. Arlington, Va: Information Resources

Press, 1983: 9-19.

3. Xu, Jian-ye. Improving abstracting services. Bulletin of the

China Society of Library Science V. 13, No. 2,1987,57-62.*

4. Chen, Guang-zuo et al. Scientific and technical information

retrieval. Wuhan, China: Wuhan Univ. Press, 1985.*

5. Wang, Ting-jung. Ten years of scientific and technical

information services. Science and Technology Daily. Jan.

19, 1989.*

6. Wu, Zong-shao. On the problem of establishing the system

of bioscience literature retrieval publications in China.

Library and Information Service No. 6, 1984, 8-11.*

7. Zeng, Lei. An introduction to thesauri and classification

systems in the People's Republic of China. International

Classification V. 13, No. 1, 1986, 24-8.

8. Yan, Yi-min. Information system management. Sci. & Tech.

Document Press, 1988.*

9. Yearbook of statistics in China, 1987. Ed. by China Statisti

cal Bureau, Peking: China Statistical Press.*

10. Xu, Ru-jing & Zhou, Shi-hu. The network activities of the

documentation and information system of China Academia

Sinica in the past eight years. Library and Information

Service No. 1, 1989,8-13.*

11. Qi, Yan-li. The development and status of the patents

information retrieval services in our country. Information

Service Research No. 2, 1987, 97-101.*

12. Neufield, M. Lynne. Abstracting and Indexing Services. In

The ALA Yearbook of Library and Information Services

V. 10, 1985. American Library Association. 1985, 25-6.

13. Huang, Guan-cheng. APINMAP and its national center of

China. Library and Information Science No. 1, 1989, 43.*

14. Xu, Ying. Needs of talents in the machinery industry.

Information Science V. 9, No. 4, 1988, 85-91.*

15. Qiu, Kun-de. Scientific and technical information retrieval

services: problems and suggestions. Scientific and Technical

Information Services No. 10, 1985, 11-13.*

16. Lin, Te-hai. Some problems of the documentation

standarization in our country. Beijing Library Bulletin

No. 2, 1988, 25-30.*



17. Zeng, Min-zu. Construction and development of the

database services in China. Journal of the China Society for

Scientific and Technical Information V. 7, No. 1, 1988, 1-7.*

18. Xiao, Zi-li. The founding of document resources and the

investigation into the layout of social sciences documents.

Bulletin of the China Society of Library Science No. 4, 1988,

42-6.*

19. Chen, Tong-bao. Achievement, problem and the future of

the development of computer-based information retrieval

system in China. Scientific and Technical information

services No. 10, 1986, 8-10.*

20. Chen, Guang-zuo & Wang, Bing. On the computer-based

information retrieval in our country. Science of Science and

Scientific Technology Management No. 11, 1988, 9-21.*

21. Shen, Di-fei. Problems of development strategy for China's

database construction. Journal of the China Society for

Scientific and Technical Information V. 7. No. 3, 1988.

165-70.*

*Texls in Chinese.

The author would like to thank Professor Allen Kent and Linda

Hill for their great help in this research and in the writing of the

paper.

Lei Zeng is currently a PhD student in the School of

Library and Information Science, University of

Pittsburgh, and working at the East Asian library there.

She previously taught courses on indexes and indexing and

on vocabulary control in information retrieval systems at

the School of Library and Information Science, Wuhan

University, Wuhan, China.

Documenting databases

If the present rate of growth continues 5,000 online

databases will be available to the public by 1991, accord

ing to Cuadra/Elsevier, publishers of the Directory of

Online Databases, the guide to publicly available online

databases worldwide, and the new Directory of Portable

Databases.

The numbers of portable databases—databases on

CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory) and

magnetic tape—also continue to grow, at rates even

faster than online databases. Portable databases,

designed for access on users' own computer systems, are

a much more recent phenomenon. They entered the

market in 1985 and, according to Cuadra/Elsevier, will

reach the 1,000 figure by the middle of 1990.

The latest issue of the Directory of Online Databases

lists 4,465 online databases covering all kinds of subject

matter. These databases were developed by 1,948 dif

ferent producers and are offered through a total of 644

online services ("hosts") or gateway services.

Figures taken from the Directory show increases over

the last ten years of from 400 to 4,465 databases; from

221 to 1,948 producers; 59 to 644 online services.

Online and portable databases overlap somewhat in

their subject matter and some databases are available

both online and in portable form. While online databases

are limited by the technology and cost of telecommunica

tions, portable databases can cover more types of

material, such as sound and graphics.

The most common type of online database is full text,

reflecting trend over the past years toward moving

"paper" to electronic forms. These databases include the

full text of newspaper articles, industry newsletters, and

legal case decisions. The next most common type is

bibliographic—citations, sometimes with abstracts—to

scientific, technical, business, and other literature. Other

types of databases are numeric, referral, and mixtures of

primary sources of information. Few online databases

contain graphics or images.

The most common type of portable database is biblio

graphic, then referral databases providing references to

non-print sources of information.

Portable databases containing sounds and images are

represented by a variety of products. The Directory of

Portable Databases lists, in addition to 15 databases

containing collections of sounds or speech, illustrative

"audio" information including digital sound effects and

music effects, pronunciation guides, speech recordings

and melodies of famous composers, as well as over 50

portable databases containing images, including graphic

design aids, photographs, charts, figures, illustrations,

and representations of works of art or maps. Illustrative

"image" databases contain clip art, maps, photographs

and illustrations, and high-resolution color images of

portraits.

Parlez-vous...

Why do French books never have an index? My St

Simon in sixteen volumes and Mme de Sevignc in eight,

the innumerable history books and memoires on my

shelves, whether in contemporary or modern editions,

have not got an index between them. Now mailre

Maurice Garcon, member of the Academie francaise, has

given us the fruits of long and patient historical research,

in nearly 600 pages, without one. Oh! the irritation!

—Nancy Mitford in the Sunday Times, 22 June 1952.


An overview of the abstracting and indexing services in China

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