PRJRINSC.RVW   980212

"Journal of Information Science", A. Gilchrist ed., 1979-, 0165-5515,
U$200.00/UK#125.00/yr
%E   A. Gilchrist
%C   Maypole House, East Grinstead, West Sussex, RH19 1HU, UK
%D   1979 -
%G   ISSN 0165-5515
%I   Bowker-Saur/Reed Elsevier
%O   U$200.00/UK#125.00/yr +44(0)1342-330100, fax: +44(0)1342-330191
%O   lis@bowker-saur.co.uk http://www.bowker-saur.co.uk/service/
%T   "Journal of Information Science"

The Journal of Information Science is published six times a year for
the Institute of Information Scientists.  Only one issue (Volume 22,
Number 6, 1996) was originally sent for review.  The issue was a
special one, in honour of Professor Robert Thomas Bottle: all the
papers in the issue referred to his work.  Subsequently another,
older, edition was provided.

In addition to a bibliography of Bottle's work and a retrospective of
conversations with him, the special issue contained formal papers
which discussed proposals for information society policies for the UK,
a report on work in automatic extraction of citations from the text of
patents using template mining, and a history of the development of
chemistry information resources.  The issue also contains "brief
communications" of shorter, but no less formal, papers.  In this issue
there are letters to the editor and the announcement of, and call for
submissions for, a new periodical in the field.

The variety of topics was reflected in the other issue, earlier
published and later received.  There was an examination of computer-
assisted learning, information systems for academic chemistry
research, and the use of questionnaires distributed by electronic
bulletin board systems.  Most of the papers involve much collection,
tabulation, and graphing of data, including an examination of the
totally unsurprising observation that the further away one strays from
core journals in a given field, the less likely becomes the chance of
finding papers on topics in that field.  (This is known as Bradford's
law.)  Not all of the essays are formal research papers: an article on
encryption is basically a quick overview of the history and
restriction of encryption, and information on the PGP (Pretty Good
Privacy) program.

The audience for this journal would appear to be those interested in
the academic study of computer use.  Social, rather than technical,
concerns seem to predominate.  Although no restriction seems to be
placed on the types of technology to be studied, those commonly used
in scholarly and scholastic endeavors (paper writing tools, groupware,
etc.) appear to be prominent.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997, 1998   PRJRINSC.RVW   980212