This book reports a study of personal bibliographic indexing by academic researchers in Britain, which apparently was undertaken around 1984-85. The study aimed to discover what kind of personal bibliographies researchers keep and to assess the impact of (micro)computerization.

A number of unsurprising conclusions emerged. The great majority of researchers do have a bibliographic index; most are kept in cardboxes; the number of entries varies widely but ranges from around 150 for PhD students to around 2,250 for senior researchers; procedures for indexing and retrieval, selecting keywords, entering new items, purging old ones, etc., are highly individual and vary a great deal. Only 10 percent of researchers surveyed (primarily in Departments of Biochemistry, Economics, and English) had a computerized index. Reactions to computerization by those who did not were mixed and reflected considerable ignorance about the real benefits and drawbacks of computerization.

The book includes a review and comparison of six microcomputer indexing programs (dBase II, FilePlan, FAMULUS, Cardbox-Plus, Sci-Mate, and WordStar). Some fairly obvious generic technical problems are noted, such as the problems of foreign languages, the need for graphic annotations, the desirability of flexible output styles to meet the requirements of various publishers, and the ability of global search-and-replace commands in editors to assist in changing formats manually (]).

It is recommended that researchers adopt suitable storage and indexing methods early in their careers and that training be given in indexing techniques and in the capability of computers. Miscellaneous advice is included about hardware and software purchase, the design of user interfaces, the value of spatial cues for retrieval, the desirability of a tie-in to university libraries, and so on. The final conclusion is guardedly in favor of computerization, but with the caveat that in some cases there may be no great time-cost differences between manual and computerized indexes. In particular, any cost comparison will be greatly influenced by the user’s typing ability.

This book is recommended as a source of information and ideas for those designing bibliographic systems, and as a quick guide to current technology for computer-naive researchers considering computerizing their bibliographic collection. As a technology guide, however, it is already somewhat dated. It may also be of passing interest to anyone planning courses in research methodology.