Business and trade journals are an extremely important source of current business information. Not only does their frequency of publication mean that they are more up‐to‐date than other printed sources, but there are journals to cover every possible industry and topic, and they are specialized in a way few other resources can be. One of the biggest difficulties with business journals is their overwhelming numbers. This volume therefore aims “to give an idea of which types of information are available in individual journal titles, thereby saving some research time by reducing the potential number of titles to browse”.
Business Journals at SRIS contains entries to approximately 2,000 business and trade journals held at the Science Reference and Information Service in London. It is aimed primarily at the business information professional requiring access to directory, people, market, price and product information, and is designed to help pinpoint which journals offer the kinds of information required without the need to waste time browsing through unsuitable titles. The detail given for each journal title includes publisher and place of publication, issues held at SRIS, a brief outline of coverage, and whether the title includes market, directory, product, price or people information. The journals are arranged in an alphabetical subject order. The subject arrangement chosen is that developed by the European Business School Librarians Group and hence is appropriate for business and trade literature. However, no “related terms” or “see also” references are used. Hence anyone interested in the clothing industry would need to consider not just that term, but also perhaps “leather industry”, “textiles” and “apparel”. As the thesaurus used already has this facility built in, it is a pity that the authors chose not to use it.
The volume, surprisingly, does not include an alphabetical listing of the titles held. Therefore it is no straightforward matter to identify similar titles to ones you may already be familiar with. In addition, because of this lack of title listing, journals appear under many different headings ‐ all repeating the same detail about the particular journal title, for example Textile Dyer & Printer is to be found under “textiles”, “jute”, “dyes: India” and “textiles: India”; and Travel & Tourism Analyst is listed under “air transport”, “holidays:international”, “tourism” and “travel retailing”. Appropriate “see also” references would have reduced the bulk of this directory.
The usefulness of this particular volume really lies in identifying if SRIS has a particular title on its shelves before a special journey is made to visit the library. It is therefore likely to be a much more useful addition to the shelves of libraries in the South than to those of us far from London!
