Customer Reviews

Indexing and Abstracting in Theory and Practice

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F.W.Lancaster is a true pioneer in Information Science. He is in my opinion at least among the top ten along with persons such as Eugene Garfield and Patrick Wilson. And in a way he is broader than they are. This book represents in my view the state of the art of a core area in information science today. This does not mean, that I am not critical of it. I have written a long review of this book in the Journal of Documentation, June 1999, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 345-351. In this review I outline how research in this field can be improved. But I believe it will take a long time before we can replace this book with a better one.

Since 'Indexing and Abstracting in Theory and Practice' was a required text for my Subject Analysis course, I expected Lancaster's book to be involved and informative... and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Not only does he provide analysis of indexing and abstracting theories, but he includes specific guidelines and examples for a variety of techniques. Most reviews concern earlier editions, but the third edition has only slight changes (addition of chapters concerning indexing/abstracting in context of advancing technology).