Graduate School of Library Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Abstract
There were fifteen speakers at this Institute, excluding chairpersons and
makers of announcements. I was asked to summarize and bring out the
highlights of their remarks. I shall leave aside the details and specifics of
individual titles and focus on matters of more general import. I shall speak of
those ways in which it seemed the remarks and concerns of the speakers at
this conference are typical of what (good) librarians do in regard to any
specified subject. Later I shall discuss the ways in which they are not.
1. A good librarian usually becomes aware of an emerging problem area of
general interest reasonably early, and of its ramifications and implications.
Several speakers pointed out how recently the problem of environmental
control has come into the limelight, and how pervasive it is. In 1965,
according to Quigley, the ACS made its initial decision to work on the
problem. The National Environmental Policy Act was passed in 1969, but
according to Friedlander EPA is already funding 4,000 projects. Zimmerman
pointed out that only in the last few years have standard tools like the
Subject Guide to Books in Print and the Monthly Catalog of United States
Government Publications, used some of the appropriate subject headings. On
the other hand, Veyette reported that Engineering Index has used subject
headings dealing with the pollution of the environment since before 1900, but
that was for technical literature for engineers and apparently had no great
impact.published or submitted for publicatio
