Access to information from the USSR and Eastern Europe

Western users of information from and about the area: types and characteristics. Sources of published information in the area: organisation and control of publishing activity, volume and peculiarities of published output. Unpublished and semi‐published information. ‘Uncontrolled’ sources of information. Access to information: the indigenous tools for access and the Western‐based information‐processing efforts which index, abstract, translate and interpret. Problems of access to special types of information: political and economic, technical and scientific, commercial and academic. Acquisition and handling of information from the area by Western libraries and information services: distribution and adequacy of provision.