Some General Characteristics of the Abstracting Journals Published in Korea

한국초록집의 특성

This paper attempts to define some general characteristics of the Abstracting Journals published in Korea as evidenced in those published during last ten years. This purpose is achieved by comparing the results of the two studies conducted by the author in 1984 and in 1994. Both studies were conducted to present the state of the art in the abstracting services in Korea. The major conclusions made in this paper are summarised as follows： (1) Researchers and professionals working in a small number of subject fields are benefited by the abstracting journals, which provide current-awareness services of recent achievements in research and development in Korea. Those in most of the fields have no abstracting journals of their own, and naturally they have no substantial abstract-ing services. Even many researchers and professionals in the fields that have some abstracting journals are not informed of research results in their fields because the abstracting journals are scattered in many narrow subjects and in many cases, the abstracting journals only cover publications in some specific forms and kinds. (2) Abstracting journals that cover more than two subject fields, which are supposed to be of more or less help to the researchers and professionals in the subject fields that have no abstracting journals published in their fields, have rapidly increased in number in the past ten years. Most of suh abstracting journals carry thesis and dissertation abstracts, and the rest, those of research papers published in specific places, in specific forms, by specific institutions, and of reports of research projects sponsored by specific foundations. These abstracting journals are not of the kind that comprehensively provide researchers in related fields with current awareness of publications of research results in Korea. (3) Most of the abstracting Journals existing in Korea are Published by institutions of higher education and research institutes, and the rest, by commercial publishers, industrial firms, libraries, information centres, government agencies, research foundations, learned societies, etc. Those which publish many titles are small in number and those publish one or two titles are large in number. The former is largely made up of institutions of higher education and research institutes. (4) The abstracting journals published in Korea are classified by type into those of dissertations, research papers, journal articles, patent specifications in that descending order. The fact that Master; and doctoral dissertation abstracts ate dominating in Korea is due to the irrational practice of publishing those abstracts at many different institutions. (5) Most of the abstracting journals existing in Korea are published by national or government-supported research institutes in order to publicise their own research outputs. Their coverage of literature is normally narrow, and naturally their value to users is limited. (6) Korean is the desirable language for the abstracting journals intended to be distributed within Korea. About half of the abstracting jornals published in Korea is printed in Korean and the other half, in foreign languages, and in Korean and in foreign languages together. All the abstracting journals in foreign languages are printed in English except one, which is printed in Japanese. (7) Some twenty per cent of the abstracting journals in Korea is published monthly, bimonthly, and quarterly. The others are published annually, biannually and irregularly. The latter may not function properly as a current-awareness tool due to long intervals between their issues. It is particularly undesirable that about half of the abstracting journals in Korea is published irregularly. Most of the abstracting journals published in Korea are distributed freely to individuals and institutions selected by the publishers. (8) The abstracting journals published by the use of computers increased drastically in the past ten years. The abstracting journals produced by the conventional type-setting method will possibly disappear in Korea in another ten years to come. Automation of the production of abstracting journals does not simply mean technical, economic improvement in publishing processes but availability of machine-readable databases that can be used for many other pur-poses, including generation of other bibliographical publications and provision of machine literature searching capabilities. Necessary steps should be taken for this important development immediately.

1984년에 발행된 本誌 第6輯에 필자는 당시의 한국초록서비스의 技術現況에 대하여 조사한 결과를 발표한 바 있다. 그로부터 10년이 지난 금년에 필자는 다시 類似한 範圍와 內容의 조사를 행하여 한국초록서비스의 變化 또는 발전의 實相을 밝혀 보려고 한다. 금년 조사의 실제적 意圖는 초록서비스의 주요 道具인 이 나라 초록지의 발전과정을 10년이라는 비교적 긴 기간에 걸쳐서 觀察하고 그 持續的 특성이 어떤 것인지를 定義하려는 데 있다. 한 나라 초록지의 일반적 특성을 어느 해에 實行한 한번의 조사결과에 기초하여 定義하기는 어렵다. 韓國抄錄서비스의 기술현황을 조사한 결과 부분은 금년 여름 "한국문헌정보학회지" 발표하였으므로(최성진, 1994) 여기서는 지난 10년 동안에 관찰된 한국초록지의 일반적 특성에 대해서만 制限的으로 살펴보려고 한다. 그러나 本稿의 論議가 대부분 위의 記事와 같은 資料에 根據한 것이므로 그것을 참고하면 이해에 도움이 될 것이다. 硏究開發投資가 해마다 증가하여 최근 한국에는 많은 연구보고문헌 이 생산 축적되고 있지만 그것을 각분야 연구자와 기술자들에게 신속히 알려서 효과적으로 이용하게 해야 할 초록지는 그 種數도 적고 내용 또한 贊弱한 형편이다. 한국초록지의 내용을 충실히 하고 이용자 들에게 硏究速報媒體로서 더 유용하게 하려면 먼저 그 일반적 특성이 어떤 것이며 長點과 短點은 어떤 것인지를 定義할 필요가 있다. 本稿는 그러한 定義를 試圖하려는 것이다. 情報奉仕는 그것을 출현시킨 국가의 전통과 관습에 따라 조금씩 다른 모양으로 발전한다. 결과적으로 각국의 정보봉사나 그 도구인 초록지의 형태에도 多少間에 差異가 나타난다. 本稿는 그러한 觀點에서 世界의 普遍的 抄錄誌 形態에서 벗어나는 韓國抄錄誌의 特性을 밝히는 데 論議를 集中시키려고 한다.