What are the characteristics of Current Awareness Services? Describe its types.
Current Awareness Service (CAS) is defined as an information service through which users are informed about recently published literature promptly, before they are noticed in regular abstracting and indexing journals. Some prominent characteristics of CAS are:
1. Announcement-based Service: CAS is basically an announcement service brought out in printed form (as accession lists, documentation list, Current awareness list, etc.) and/or in digital form which is disseminated through the internet, extranet, intranet or email.
2. Speedy Service: Speed is of essence in CAS, as a result of which the periodicity of the service ranges from weekly to monthly. Due to its short periodicity, the literature generated through CAS appears faster than usual abstracting and indexing services.
3. Generates 'current approach to information' in researchers: There are generally four distinct approaches that researchers follow, i.e.,
(i) Exhaustive Approach
(ii) Everyday Approach
(iii) Current Approach
(iv) Catching Up or Brushing-up Approach
The current approach helps researchers stay abreast of the developments in their respective fields and ensures that the research they conduct is relevant to the present-day scenario.
4. Provides a broad view of recent developments: Current Awareness Service (CAS) does not answer a specific query of a researcher. Instead, the researcher can scan through the CAS in his/her area of interest, note down the bibliographical details of the articles, and gather these papers from libraries, information centers, etc. to use them for his/her research work.
5. CAS is a formal Channel: Current Awareness Service (CAS) is a formal channels of information dissemination, and often supplements the information received through informal channels (conversations, emails, preprints, etc. that researchers might get from fellow researchers.
6. Covers Broader Topics: CAS is usually generated on broader areas so that the researchers have access to the core journals from their field as well as journals related to or alien to their field.
7. Only Meant for Scanning: CAS is only meant for researchers to scan the pages, find topics/articles relevant to their research topic and note down the papers of their interest if they spot any.
8. Meant for Temporary use only: CAS is only meant to inform researchers of current developments in their field in advance. Everything listed in a CAS, inadvertently reappears in indexing and abstracting services afterwards.
Types of Current Awareness Services (CAS)
The different types of CAS include Title Announcement Services, Announcement of Research in Progress, SDI, Advance information about forthcoming conferences and Newspaper Clipping Services. These can be explained as follows:
1. Title Announcement Service
The main purpose of this service is to disseminate the titles of the articles along with their bibliographical details. Introduced by Eugene Garfield (USA), this service is also known as Current Contents Type service. The generation of this type of service involves the least cost, labour and time.
Title announcement service can be produced in three forms as follows:
a) Current Contents Type: Firstly, the title and periodicity of the service is decided. Then, the journal issues available at the library for a pre-selected period are gathered, and their contents (table of contents) pages are scanned to be copied. The contents pages of each periodical is arranged in alphabetical order to form the bulletin. All these pages are stapled along with the cover page for the CAS bulletin to be finalized and ready for distribution.
b) CAS arranged by subject: Here, instead of simply copying the table of contents, an entry for each article is to be prepared on catalogue cards, generally using broad subject headings to speed up the work. After all entries are prepared, they are to be arranged firstly according to the subject, and then alphabetically, author-wise within each subject.
c) CAS arranged by Class Number: The process of preparing this type of CAS involves the use of class numbers along with the subject headings on catalogue cards. Here, both the author index and subject index may be provided.
2. Announcement of Research in Progress
To avoid duplicity in research work, many universities and research organizations bring out their respective directories of ongoing research projects. An entry in this kind of publication usually contains names9s) and addresses(s) of investigators, title of research project, starting and most likely finishing date of the research project, and the abstract. In case of research projects associated with PhD degrees, the names of the degree and the guide are also included.
3. Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI)
Selective Dissemination of information (SDI) is a type of personalized Current Awareness Service (CAS) which, under optimum conditions, involves screening of documents, selecting information exactly tailored to meet the specific research needs of each user or a group of users and supplying the information directly to each individual or group so that the user can keep himself abreast of the latest developments in the area of his specialization.
4. Advance Information About Forthcoming Conferences
Every year, numerous conferences are held all over the world in almost every known subject, where professionals present papers on their respective subjects, exchange ideas with colleagues and update their knowledge in the field. For presenting a paper, professionals must send an abstract of their paper in advance, and only upon its acceptance they can present the paper publicly. That is why, many publishers bring out serial publications listing the forthcoming conferences, which may even be subscribed by libraries depending upon their demand.
5. Newspaper Clipping Service
Based on the user's demand, a librarian or CAS service provider may cut out relevant clips from newspapers (both old and new) that are relevant to the user. These are then pasted on a paper of suitable size, and a suitable subject heading is assigned to every clipping. Along with the heading, the location and date of the article are also mentioned. Newspaper Clipping services can be person-oriented, institution-oriented, government oriented, and subject-oriented service.
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