A Personalized Service to Academic Researchers: the Experimental Information Service in the Social Sciences at the University of Bath

Abstract

Between 1969 and 1971 Bath University Library experimented with a personalized information service to social science researchers at the Universities of Bath and Bristol. The principal service offered was a manunl current awareness service, based mainly on the scanning of primary and abstracting journals. The service was evaluated by feedback slips returned by clients for each reference notified, and by a questionnaire at the end of the experiment. The relevance performance was good, and few references had been seen before; some precision could have been sacrificed to ensure comprehensive recall. The whole service was rated highly by nearly all users and considered to be a high priority among the various possible claims on university resources. Those who had the closest contact with the infor mation officers had the best scores on most aspects evaluated and rated the service most highly. Some general observations on the place and value of an information service in a university library are given in conclusion.