THE CHANGING ROLE OF SECONDARY INFORMATION SERVICES

Stated as simply as possible, the basic purpose of secondary (abstracting and indexing) services is to save the time of the user. They identify the primary literature so that the user has access to recorded knowledge on either a current or a retrospective basis. In his detailed study of abstract journal development between 1790 and 1920, Manzer 1 states that the early secondary services were "undertaken to provide a convenient, current digest and index to... provide for scholars effective bibliographic control of the evergrowing body of journal literature on both a current and retrospective basis". Initially, secondary services were developed for the polymath scholars of the 18th and 19th centuries. They evolved to cover specific scientific disciplines with ' such services as Physic Abstracts (1898), Chemical Abstracts (1907) and Biological Abstracts (1926). Responding to the pressures of the 20th century with its two World Wars, the development of nuclear energy (with its potential for both good and ill), the space race and man's growing concern with the environment and the use o