Knowledge, Practices, and Challenges of Library Practitioners on Abstracting

Access is the primary concern of a library thus information retrieval tool like an abstract is as important as the Online Public Access Catalog. Abstracting then plays an important role in improving access to information that is needed by library users. Librarians then perform this task primarily to guide the users in deciding whether an information resource will be consulted or not. The study utilized the descriptive method of research using a survey questionnaire to determine the level of knowledge and practices on the parts and types of abstracts and the challenges on abstracts a document surrogate encountered by library practitioners in selected parts of Northern Luzon, Philippines. The study found out that the library practitioners exhibited a high knowledge and practice on abstracting which can be attributed to their undergraduate studies specifically in the core major subject, indexing and abstracting. However, they enumerated challenges such as: 1) lack of time to carry out their abstracting function; 2) lack of policies and procedures in abstracting; 3) lack of manpower to do the job; 4) lack of motivation to perform the task; and 5) abstract is not a concern of most faculty and students. On the other hand, abstracts continue to be useful to the academic and research community and that library practitioners must find time to create or innovate ways of abstracting important documents useful to their users

Digging the Issues and Concerns in Subject Access Towards Discoverability of Information and Resources

There is an information explosion in this computer age due to the rapid developments of information and communications technology. As a result, research and studies are quickly published because of faster printing and open access publishing. With these, access to information and resources is somewhat compromised. Without access, these collections are meaningless to educators, researchers, scholars, and other information users. Thus, this study prompted to determine the: 1) level of familiarity in the fundamental principles of subject cataloging; 2) level of usage familiarity of: a) grammar and code of relationships, b) types of subject headings and subdivisions, and c) authority tools; and 3) level of issues or concerns of librarians in assigning subject headings. On the level of familiarity on the fundamental principles of subject cataloging, findings revealed that the respondents are: 1) very familiar with the main objectives of subject cataloging, that is, to list in one uniform word or phrase all the materials on a given subject that a library has in its collection, and control the terms to be used in assigning subjects to materials; 2) extremely familiar on the first and last steps in subject analysis, that is, to examine first the library material at hand, and to use the decided keywords to go over the subject authority lists to identify appropriate headings; and very familiar on deciding on several keywords that could represent the subject; and 3) very familiar with the basic principles of subject headings. On the level of usage familiarity of grammar and code of relationships, types of subject headings, and authority tools, the study affirmed that the respondents are: 1) very familiar in assigning grammar of subject headings; 2) very familiar in the grammar, and code of relationships of subject headings; and 3) extremely familiar with the names of persons/corporations/meetings, and topical subject headings. On the level of issues or concerns of librarians in assigning subject headings, the respondents are moderately concerned or have an issue with all the different aspects of assigning subject headings. In order to efficiently and effectively retrieve information, issues and concerns in subject access should be addressed by catalogers

Knowledge, Practices, and Challenges of Library Practitioners on Abstracting

Access is the primary concern of a library thus information retrieval tool like an abstract is as important as the Online Public Access Catalog. Abstracting then plays an important role in improving access to information that is needed by library users. Librarians then perform this task primarily to guide the users in deciding whether an information resource will be consulted or not. The study utilized the descriptive method of research using a survey questionnaire to determine the level of knowledge and practices on the parts and types of abstracts and the challenges on abstracts a document surrogate encountered by library practitioners in selected parts of Northern Luzon, Philippines. The study found out that the library practitioners exhibited a high knowledge and practice on abstracting which can be attributed to their undergraduate studies specifically in the core major subject, indexing and abstracting. However, they enumerated challenges such as: 1) lack of time to carry out their abstracting function; 2) lack of policies and procedures in abstracting; 3) lack of manpower to do the job; 4) lack of motivation to perform the task; and 5) abstract is not a concern of most faculty and students. On the other hand, abstracts continue to be useful to the academic and research community and that library practitioners must find time to create or innovate ways of abstracting important documents useful to their users