College and Research Libraries HARVEY MARRON and PATRICIA SULLIVAN lnforination Disseinination in Education: THE DISSEMINATION OF educational in- formation has undergone dramatic change and growth in the last decade. Not only has the volume of informa- tion to be conveyed exploded, but the techniques employed to disseminate and use it have grown complex and demand- ing. Perhaps still more significant is our recognition that, for whatever reasons, information is not being disseminated and used as much as it should be by members of the educational communi- ty. Regardless of the title assigned to our jobs- reference librarian, information center manager, or director of special services-we are all concerned with the handling and use of information. This is the heart of the business. How can the librarian effectuate a successful in- formation dissemination program? Cer- tainly there is no simple answer to this broad and complex question. But who will disagree that a necessary starting point is to survey the resources and dis- semination techniques now available? This article provides such a survey, and hopefully, will stimulate the use and further expansion of similar efforts in other fields of education. As used in the following discussion, Mr. Marron is director, Division of Infor- mation Resources, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Educa- tion, \V ashington, D.C. Mrs . Sullivan is education specialist with the Division of Information Resources, U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C. 286 I A Status Report the term "educational information" re- fers to that information which exists or existed in a classical document (i.e., the printed page with a readable, cogent title and catalogable with standard tech- niques). Non print media, although im- portant, are excluded. PRIMARY PuBLICATIONS Information is transmitted in a vari- ety of ways, but most commonly in pri- mary documents. Just a decade or two ago grim predictions were heard fore- warning the doom of the conventional book and journal as disseminators of in- formation. Newer forms of informa- tion conveyance (microforms, tapes, and audiovisuals) are undoubtedly be- coming more important, but the book, journal article, report, and other con- ventional forms are still the primary methods for disseminating information. The primary publications may not be where the action is, but they are where the action is described and fully docu- mented. The information explosion in the primary literature has been well docu- mented. The same patterns of exponen- tial growth observed in scientific and technical literature are now developing in the primary literature in the field of education.1 Closer examination reveals that the primary literature is arbitrarily grouped into three categories: books, journal articles, and reports (which in- clude speeches, conference proceedings, and other documents of relatively limit- ed distribution). I nfor,mation Dissemination in Education I 281 The extent of the book literature in the field of education is difficult to esti- mate. The latest edition of Books in Print lists some 200,000 titles. The frac- tion of these which fall within the field of education depends on the definition of "education" and the source of infor- mation. Publisherl Weekly estimates that 842 new titles and editions were published last year in the field of educa- tion , i.e., those classified as education under the Dewey Decimal System. 2 Since this figure excludes such categories as textbooks, instructional guides, and manuals, the actual figure must be sub- stantially higher. The message is clear, if not precise: There are many books appearing each year in the field of edu- cation, but the exact number is un- known. In the United States alone, .at least 30,000 reports annually are put into some kind of pipeline for distribution. Based upon the experience of the Edu- cational Resources Information Center (ERIC) system, however, only about 10,000 of these are considered sufficient- ly valuable, significant, and of wide enough interest to be disseminated na- tionally. It should be noted, however, that ERIC does not currently handle curricula materials and statistical or school management reports. How many useful educational jour- nal articles are currently being pub- lished? Although the precise number is difficult to estimate, the 1970 Standard Periodical Directory lists 1,620 titles un- der the heading of education, but the definition of periodicals is broad, and the heading "education" is even broad- er. In 1968 Saul Herner asked a select group from the educational community (representing researchers, administra- tors, and government personnel) to identify the journals they scanned regu- larly. The Herner list included over 350 periodic.als.3 We have since learned that there are over 500 English language journals containing significant numbers of substantive and useful articles on education. This translates to between 15,000 to 20,000 articles per year. A gen- eral observation can be made concerning the primary publications in the field of education. Referring to books, journal articles, and reports, we may not be able to state with precision the number ap- pearing each year, but clearly the num- ber is large. This large number can be viewed as a mixed blessing. On the one hand, with so many publications there must be lots of information available, but one may find it difficult to find the information needed to satisfy a specific use. SECONDARY SERVICES Clearly, there are n1any primary pub- lications being generated which are of interest and value to educators. So many, in fact, that the librarian or in- formation center manager cannot hope to acquire, stock, and have available for immediate use all potentially useful documents. Fortunately, there are sev- eral secondary services which help sep- arate potentially useful primary docu- ments from the others and provide a means of gaining access to specific re- ports .and journal articles. (The table at the end of this article provides a sum- mary of secondary services of interest to educators.) The newest and most comprehensive secondary service for report literature in the field of education is Research in Education (RIE). This monthly ab- stracting .and indexing publication is published by the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) and the Government Printing Office. RIE lists about 10,000 items per year, the majori- ty of which are reports, speeches, and other so-called "fugitive" documents. It was a thin fellow at birth in November 1966 (containing fewer than fifty items) but it grev; fast and seems to have leveled off at about 850 citations monthly. The twelve monthly issues and 288 I College & Research Libraries • July 1971 the cumulated indexes sell for about $30 per year. . , . In addition to RIE, ERIC publishes, from time td time,. catalogs and indexes to collections of reports in areas of spe- cial interest. Examples are the yearly compilations and manpower research documents or projects supported under Title III of the Elementary and Sec- ondary Education Act. Several major secondary services cover the journal literature of education. The oldest of these, . Education Index (EI), provides a subject index to the educa- tional periodical literature. Ef s cover..: age has expanded considerably in the last decade, growing from 190 journals in 1960 to nearly 250 in 1969. A relative newcomer to the education world is the Current Index to journals in Education ,(CI]E). A monthly, CI]E currently cites , about 15,000 articles per year from over 500 primary journals. CI]E is published as a cooperative effort between the ERIC program and Crowell Collier and . Macmillan Information Corporation. : Twelve monthly issues plus semiannual and annual cumulated indexes cost $64 per year. CI]E, cover- ing the periodical literature of educa- tion, serves as the companion volume to RIE. Both . volumes employ ERIC de- scriptors, and the items cited are in- dexed to considerable depth, allowing better retrieval capabilities on a current and retrospective basis. Within the last few years the Insti- tute for Scientific Information (lSI) announced the publication of Current Contents-Education. This weekly pro- vides reproduction of the content pages of about 700 journals. The chief strength of Current Contents-Educa- tion is the ease and speed of scanning for educational articles on a current basis. The annual subscription is $100, but a reduced rate of $67.50 is available to educational institutions. Access to the book literature in edu- cation is provided in numerous well- known sources: Publisherl Weekly, Li- brary journal, CHOICE, and Forthcom- ing Books, to name just a few. Most ·ed- ucational periodicals provide book .re- views or lists as a regular feature and many, such as School and Society, Edu- cational Leadership, and Phi Delta Kap- pan, publish regular annual or biannual lists of books of interest to educators. The main recurring guide is Phi Lamb- da Theta's annual · compilation, Educa- tion Book List. An excellent guide for building a collection is the New York University list of Books in Education, compiled by Barbara Marks. , There are, of course, many . more worthy secondary services which could be cited. Suffice to say that today there are a variety of secondary services de- signed to help the librarian and his cus- tomers identify and gain access to th e primary literature of education. REVIEWS AND SUMMARIES So far it has been established that many primary publications are pub- lished each year, and many tools and services are available to help libraria11s gain access to the literature. Is that enough? Perhaps it was in the past, but no longer. There is hardly a question about a new technique or research area that doesn't release a torrent of docu- ments which discuss the subject from a variety of viewpoints. The· truth of the matter is that when librarians or their customers have a problem, they are looking for a practical solution; People seeking information often are not re- searchers and don't want to know all there is to know about a subject. Faced with a problem and looking for some direction, most would be perfectly hap- py to take the word of an expert who has examined the alternatives and then recommended or provided · guides on how to proceed. As a matter of fact, even highly trained and sophisticated scientists are now demanding review ar- ticles to obviate their having to acquire, I A! Information Dissemination in Education I 289 read, and make evaluative judgments on the plethora of papers available in print. Action-oriented people do not want exhaustive bibliographies. They want selective bibliographies, interpre- tive summaries, critical reviews, guides, or "how to do it" manuals. This is not to say that those needing exhaustive bib- liographies should not have them also. Currently, very significant progress is being made in the d evelopment of in- form ation analysis products for the field of education. Since 1941 the major source of digest- ed, concise summaries of educational re- search has been American Education Research Association's ( AERA) Ency- clopedia of Educational Research. The fourth edition provides summaries of close to 200 major aspects of education, each with extensive bibliographies. AERA' s two journals, Review of Educa- tion Research and American Education- al Research I ournal, provide useful up- dating for the Encyclopedia. In addi- tion, AERA's specialized volume, Hand- book of Research on Teaching, pro- vides comprehensive reviews of research on the theory and practice of teaching. More recently the ERIC Clearing- houses have begun major information analysis programs in their respective subject areas. The clearinghouses are charged (within their capabilities) with the responsibility of preparing such se- lective, annotated bibliographies, re- views, summaries, digests, and guides as are most needed by education. Last year the ERIC system prepared and dissemi- nated about 240 information analysis items; the number is expected to exceed 350 this year. A new series of reviews designed to complement the ERIC system is current- ly underway at Britannica, Inc. Entitled Britannica Reviews of Education, the capstone of the series is the recently published volume, Britannica Review of American Education. The volume, to b e issued biannually, summarizes the broad progress and developments in American education. Other parts of this review series will synthesize the research and latest d evelopments in specific areas of American education. The first of these more narrowly focused volumes, The Britannica Review of Foreign Lan- guage Education, has already been pub- lished. It was written in cooperation with the ERIC Clearinghouse on Teach- ing of Foreign Languages. Future re- view volumes are planned in the fields of educational technology, engineering education, science, English, and early childhood education. There are still other efforts in this di- rection. Under a grant from the U.S. Office of Education, the Council of Chief State School Officers published a two-volume effort summarizing educa- tional issues of interest to state educa- tion leaders. The first volume is titled Education in the States: Historical De- velopment and Outlook, and the second is titled Nationwide Development Since 1900. The latter reviews in depth six- teen areas of concern to all state de- partments of education (i. e ., education- al facilities, finance, food services, etc.). Various subject-oriented professional associations also produce reviews of the literature and research in their field. The International Reading Association, for example, publishes the Reading Re- search Quarterly which provides a com- prehensive review of the published re- search on reading on a yearly basis. Clearly, the trend is toward selectivi- ty, critical review, and analysis. The growth and diversity of the educational literature undoubtedly ensures that this thrust will b e continued and intensified. EDUCATIONAL INFORMATION CENTER A growing influence in the complex business of disseminating educational information is the educational infor- mation center. What does such a center do? As used herein, an educational in- formation center provides a variety of 290 I College & Research Libraries • July 1971 services which may include but is not limited to reference, referral, or bibli- ographic activities. The source docu- ments used may be within the center it- self in the form of books, periodicals, reports, ERIC materials, or instructional materials, or from sources external to the center. Some may feel that this definition in fact describes a special library. The ter- minology varies widely, depending on the service provided by a particular li- brary. The critical distinction to be made between an educational informa- tion center and a library is; the consulting service and the expert advice on educa- tional matters that are provided over and above the conventional bibliograph- ic services. The number of educational informa- tion centers in the United States is sur- prisingly large. In 1969 the USOE com- piled a Directory of Educational In- formation Centers which fit the above description and identified 397 educa- tional information centers scattered through the United States. In the opinion of the authors, educa- tional information centers will play an increasingly important role in the dis- semination of information to the edu- cational community not only because they are in the best position to provide bibliographic services, but because they also enhance the probability of utiliza- tion by providing problem-solvers at the local level. REFERRAL AcTIVITIES It is interesting to note that when in- formation people or librarians discuss services they tend to focus on the user who knows what he's doing and what he wants. This is probably because general- ly it is more fun to work with the "pro" than with the confused novice. But what · about this uninformed novice? He is reluctant even to discuss the matter with his librarian. It serves little pur- pose to lecture in pious tones that he ought not be ashamed and that he ought to bring his problems to the people who can help him. The fact is that he is of- ten reluctant to do so. There ought to be a place or places where he can go and unashamedly ask to be headed in the right direction. Fortunately, there are such aids available. In his Brief Guide to Sources of Sci- entific and Technical Information Saul Herner lists thirty-seven separate direc- tories and guidance sources. Admittedly, the thrust is toward science and technol- ogy, but many deal with the behavioral or social sciences or education. Some ex- amples of these are the Directory of Special Libraries and Information C en- ters and the National Referral Center for Science or Technology. There are a few more which are pertinent to those seeking information in the area of edu- cation. ON -GOING RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT The preponderance of information reported in the literature and dissemi- nated via any of the techniques dis- cussed thus far deals with the results of research, development, or testing pro- grams in education which are already contained in documents or publications. The existence of a considerable time lag between research and development and subsequent publication is well docu- mented. 4 How does one find out about work while it is in progress? While the dissemination network available to pro- vide responses to such questions in the area of education leaves something to be desired, there are several channels available. The Commerce Business Daily rou- tinely announces U.S. Government con- tract awards for all new R&D projects. Admittedly, most of these are in the areas of science and technology, but the social sciences and education are hang- ~ I I J J r I l Information Dissemination in Education I 291 ing in there-even if only by the finger- nails. Research in Education, in its Project Section, reports monthly on the research grants and contracts awarded by USOE. By far, the most comprehensive ser- vice for current awareness of research and development is the Science Infor- mation Exchange ( SIE ) of The Smith- sonian Institution. The bulk of SIE' s holdings are in the physical, biological, medical, and engineering sciences, but the social, behavioral, and educational research holdings are building up at a rapid rate. SIE does not publish lists of its holdings and must be asked for in- formation. Another point to keep in mind is that SIE covers only research and development. Unfortunately, much of the work that we are interested in is not classified as research and develop- ment and is therefore not included in the SIE files. . In summary, there are ways of finding out about on-going research and devel- opment, even though the dissemination channels need considerable improve- ment. NEW TECHN IQUES A review of the status of dissemina- tion of educational information would not be complete without mention of some of the newer techniques. There are some exciting developments, particu- larly in the areas of file query and doc- ument access. One of the most significant steps tak- en in recent years is the capturing of large amounts of bibliographic refer- ence materials in computer files. Many are .already available for use. For exam- ple, the USOE is currently distributing, at reasonable cost, the ERIC data base on magnetic tape. This file consists of over 40,000 surrogates of select educa- tional reports and journal articles. Fur- thermore, a software package can be provided which will search, select, and display portions of the file to selected OE activities and to state and local de- partments of education. These magnetic tape files have been requested for a va- riety of uses ranging from providing an on-going service to experimentation and training in schools of library or infor- mation sciences. It remains to be seen how many activities will prove to be vi- able. There is no question, however, that a new dimension has been added to our total dissemination capabilities. Several groups, including ERIC, are currently experimenting with on-line, interactive machine search and display systems. It is not known if such a ser- vice will be economically and technical- ly feasible, or even desirable, in provid- ing bibliographic services to education, but the education community will be kept informed of ERIC's progress. The computerizing of data bases al- lows for a variety of Selective Dissemi- nation of Information ( SDI) plans to satisfy the needs of a wide range of consumers. There are already several op- erational SDI systems in science and technology. Soon we should see similar systems for the behavioral sciences and education. Within the last year or so there have been some exciting developments with machines that store large numbers of microform and which can retrieve and display text very rapidly. The develop- ers seem confident that we will soon have the capability to store huge amounts of text (primary documents) and to gain access to the primary docu- ments or particular parts of them quick- ly and inexpensively. Many other developments are being touted and may come to pass in ten years or so, but that is not the concern of this article. The important point is that computer and microform handling systems are here and in use. They will have a real and beneficial impact on li- braries and information centers in terms of how materials are acquired, housed, and accessed. ABSTRACTING AND INDEXING SERVICES OF SPECIAL INTEREST TO EDUCATORS Original 1:'0 Issues Literature Citations Type of Basic U.S. Cumulative Reproduction ~ Services per Year Surveyed per Year Indexes Cost per Year Index Available Available from ............ 0 Abstracting Services University Microfilms £. Dissertation 12 doctoral disser- 30,000 Author/ $85. Sections Annual Microfilm/ .._ ('\) Abstracts tations from Subject available Xerographic Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106 ~ ('\) more than 210 separately G-colleges Psychological 12 700 periodicals/ 20,000 Author/ $40 Semi- None American Psychological ~ ('\) Abstracts books/ reports Subject Annual Association, Inc. C'J 1200 17th St., N.W. ('\) ~ Washington, D.C. 20036 ""'t \':) Research in 12 10,000 reports/ 10,500 Author/ $21 Semi- Microfiche; Supt. of Documents ;;:s-o Education speeches/ confer~ Sub.iect Annual! hardcopy U.S. Govt. Printing Office ~ Institution/ Annual Washington, D.C. 20402 ~. ence papers ~ Accession no. ""'t ~ Courrier 6 750 periodicals/ 5,000 Author/ $11 Annual Photocopies Chateau de Longchamp ""'t ""· 100 annuals/ Subject available Bois de Boulogne ('\) C'J books (Fr. & Eng.) Paris ( 16e), France Mental Retardation 4 7,000 periodicals/ 3,000 Author/ $ 3 Nonel None Supt. of Documents ~ +: Abstracts reports/books Subject U.S. Govt. Printing Office .._ Washington, D.C. 20402 ~ 1-.1 Exceptional Child 4 135 periodicals/ 2,800 Author/ $50 Indexes Microfiche; Council for Exceptional co Education Abstracts reports Subject/ cumulate hardcopy Children/Box 6034 'l 1-.1 Topic and with each Mid City Station Document issue Washington, D.C. 20005 Classification I Keyword Current Index to 12 530 periodicals 12,0002 Author/ $34 Semi- None CCM Information Journal in Subject/ Annual! Corporation Education D escriptor Annual 909 3rd Ave. grouping New York, N.Y. 10022 dsh Abstracts 4 300 periodicals 2,000 Author/ $ 8 Annual None American Speech and Subject Hearing Association 1001 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 College Student 4 112 periodicals 1,000 Author/ $20 Annual Microfiche; College Student Personnel Personnel Abstracts Subject hardcopy for Institute some docu- 165 E. lOth St. ments Claremont, Calif. 91711 ~--------------------~------------~------------~--------------~--------------~--------- ·-,~----------------------------~------ -- ABSTRACTING AND INDEXING SERVICES OF SPECIAL INTEREST TO EDUCATORS Original Issues Literature Citations T ype of Basic U.S. Cumulative Reproduction Services per Year Surveyed per Year Indexes Cost per Year Index Available Available from Child Development 3 37 periodicals/ 940 Author/ $10 Annual None University of Chicago Press Abstracts and books Subject 57 50 Ellis Ave. Bibliography Chicago, Ill. 60637 Educational Admini- 3 100 periodicals 650 Author/ $10 Separate None Interstate Printers and stration Abstracts Journal biennial Publishers subject 19-17 N. Jacksons St. index for Danville, Ill. 61832 earlier years Research Studies 1 doctoral disser- 7,000 Author/ $ 6 Annual None F. E. Peacock Publishers, in Education tations underway Subject Inc. and completed Itasca, Ill. 60143 Sociology of ~ 170 periodicals; ~ Education 6 Author/ $12.50 Annual None Pergamon Press, Ltd. '-h 0 Abstracts documents, Subject/ Headington Hill Hall """t books, reports Annotations Oxford, OX30BW, England ~ ~ Indexing Services