Desiderata for national bibliographical services Available to Purchase

Whatever we desire for our future, national bibliographical services in the social sciences must, in some form, represent a reaction to, or from, our present bibliographical situation. Because prescriptions for the future are so dependent upon our understanding of the present it follows that, if our appreciation of the current scene is in any way deficient, then it is probable that our proposals for reshaping the future will be inappropriate, certainly; wasteful, probably; perhaps even harmful. The significance of a set of desiderata can only be understood in a current context; that is why desiderata should always be associated with their situational lineage, setting out the particular assessment of the existing state of bibliographical provision which gives rise to brighter visions of the world of bibliography. It is for this reason, despite the pressures of time, that I have chosen to preface these remarks on desiderata with a brief review of the present situation.