The British Library for Development Studies (BLDS) bibliographic database is part of an array of online services available through Devline (Development Line) which is produced by the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Devline (http://www.ids.ac.uk/index.html) is an online database host service and electronic publisher that provides free access to development information resources. The BLDS collection was started in 1966 to support the Institute of Development Studies’s teaching and research focus on understanding problems facing developing countries.
The BLDS database contains bibliographic records for 116,000 items held by the Library. This represents approximately one third of the Library’s holdings and includes all of the Library’s 8,000 serial titles, monographs acquired since 1987, and journal articles selectively indexed since 1990. These materials are primarily in English and other European languages. They cover economic and social development, with specific focus on the areas of health, education, the environment, gender and development, population studies, communication, industrial development, debt and adjustment, participatory appraisal, human rights, good government, and democratization. A strength of this collection is that efforts were made to collect commercial, institutional, NGO, and government publications from developing countries, as well as the journals and other non‐published material of developing countries. For example, one of the results of a search on “rainforest destruction OR deforestation” was a bibliographic record for a 1997 monograph titled, Guyana: Fragile Frontier: Loggers, Miners and Forest Peoples, by the Latin American Bureau of the World Rainforest Movement.
In 1997, access to this unique collection was expanded beyond the United Kingdom with the advent of a searchable web‐based database. The BLDS database interface design is fairly clear and easy to understand and should be manageable for novice to expert searchers. The search choices are presented on the home page for the BLDS database and the searching features can be summarized as:
simple search: three boxes for keyword searching; pull down menu of Boolean operators to search terms in combination; truncation wildcard (*)
subjects, titles, authors: these fields can be searched alone or in combination using pull down menu of Boolean operators; truncation wildcard (*)
periodical titles: can search on title, subject, ISSN, country of publication, or any of these in combination using Boolean operators menu; truncation wildcard (*); note: periodical titles include annual reports
periodical articles: can search on article title, subject, author, source journal, or any of these in combination using Boolean operators menu; truncation wildcard (*)
advanced searching: can do a global search of all fields with a single Boolean search statement; can search any of the fifteen fields (includes series titles, institutional author, document types) individually or in combination using Boolean operators menu; truncation wildcard (*)
All of the searches, except for the simple search, allow for restricting by years and by an impressive list of languages (Afrikaans, Bengali, and Malay to name a few). Also, the subject indexing for the records uses descriptors from the Macrothesaurus for Information Processing in the Field of Economic and Social Development, 3rd ed. (New York: United Nations, 1985). There are plans to add a Macrothesaurus lookup feature to the database.
This database returns results quickly and they are displayed in descending order starting with the most recent publication date. The default format for record display is a title display. The user can choose another display format from a pull down menu at the top of the results screen. In contrast to the clarity of the other features in the BLDS database, the terminology used for these formats does not indicate clearly how the information will be displayed. For example, some of the format types are: full record, main1, plain record, sort1, thes1, thes2. The help information explains that the plain option is for downloading the record to computer or disk; and the full record format is for on‐screen display and printing. However, I could not find explanations for the other formats. At any rate, after choosing a format, the user must also be sure to click the Change Form button to redisplay the results.
Fifteen results are displayed per screen and in order to view the full records, the format must either be changed to full record, or boxes next to each citation must be checked and submitted. Items marked for full display must be viewed while on that screen. In other words, one cannot mark a few pages worth of interesting results to view all at once, but must view them screen by screen. Additionally, the button for viewing the next 15 records is at the top of the screen, which is inconvenient, since one usually scrolls to the bottom of the screen when perusing the results. It would be handy to have this button duplicated at the bottom of the screen.
For the most part, the BLDS database has concise and clear help instructions. The full help information is accessible from the main screen. In addition, each search screen provides brief search reminders and examples for how to enter searches, as well as prominently featuring a help button. There is also a linked email address for feedback and questions on every help and search screen. A nice element for novice users is that the simple search screen includes detailed search instructions on that screen, rather than requiring a new user to find and choose a help link for instructions.
The BLDS database can be accessed directly, or through another Devline service called ELDIS (Electronic Development and Environment Information System). The ELDIS service (http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/) includes a database of Internet sources related to the environment and development (web sites, library catalogs, bibliographies, discussion lists, and links to full text materials at other web sites). The ELDIS database is updated daily and has excellent annotations with functional links to the full text materials. ELDIS has an option where the BLDS database can be searched in combination with these other online sources. In order to search both databases, scroll down the ELDIS simple search screen and choose the link for Search for online and bibliographical information. Be careful to use their symbols for Boolean operators (&,/). Using the words “and, or” will only retrieve BLDS database records. Using the symbols retrieves both the ELDIS Internet sources and BLDS database records.
Whichever way is chosen to access the BLDS database, the actual publications can be acquired by visiting the Library in person, or by using an Interlibrary Loan service. The BLDS database is certainly of value to researchers, educators, librarians, and university‐level students with an interest in the developing regions of the world. It is an excellent example of how the Internet can facilitate information sharing opportunities and should not be a stone unturned when looking for development information.
