Students certainly, and other library users also, come to enquiry desks with incomplete often obscure references to conference proceedings, associations etc.; this publication is a useful starting point for this type of enquiry. The directory is compiled from more than 9,000 organisations and societies, conference titles and scientific terms, based on the British Library’s holdings of conference proceedings, and covers most subject areas, but does have an acknowledged bias towards medicine and science.
The layout is user‐friendly, divided into two sections: the first contains the acronyms and abbreviations, the second the association or organisation. Both are in an alphabetic sequence.
The first section can be used to identify the organisation behind the acronym, the second to confirm the acronym or abbreviation of an organisation.
Often associations and organisations share the same acronym/abbreviation, particularly international proceedings and organisations. This directory provides the alternatives at a glance. Using the directory to confirm, for example, whether ICE is the Institution or the Institute of Civil Engineers, the reader also discovers that at least two other organisations have the same initial letters – that of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and the perhaps more obscure Internal Combustion Engine division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Many similar directories are subject‐specific which is arguably more useful to the subject specialist. This however brings together, albeit alphabetically, diverse disciplines; for example, a search for the abbreviation PCA will not only lead to patient controlled analgesia, but also to the Portland Cement Association.
It is tempting to forget that this is not a directory of associations and thus become frustrated by the necessity to consult, in order to take an enquiry further, another directory – say, for example, the informative CBD research publication, Directory of British Associations, which coincidentally contains an abbreviations index section. This British Library publication does however, exactly what it sets out to do in the preface.
Inter‐library loan units will undoubtedly find this directory a valuable addition to their reference collection and indeed to any information professional involved in requests to the British Library. This should become a regular reference tool.
