Abstracting
Where do you go to look for the next thing to read? Trusted associates, social media, book reviews, readers’ advisories? If we’re talking about scholarly and research literature, I have long appealed to EBSCO’s database, History of Science, Technology & Medicine because I am someone with interests in that field. Only recently have I switched over to the open access IsisCB Explore, on which EBSCO’s subscription service depends.
Someone with primary interests in linguistics, on the other hand, might appeal to Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, a database that “abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences.” It covers various sub-fields, including “descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics.” Today, LLBA is part of ProQuest’s Linguistic Collection, which was bought by Clarivate in 2021. This instantiation of the database continues an older version that was owned by CSA (once Cambridge Scientific Abstracts) until that for-profit company merged with ProQuest in 2007. CSA, in turn, purchased LLBA’s first parent, Sociological Abstracts, in 1998. Finally, Sociological Abstracts purchased the print version of LLBA (initially titled Language and Language Behavior Abstracts) from its founders at the University of Michigan in 1974 (Blaemers, 2006: 113).
Excerpt of the CSA Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts Factsheet, 6 March 2005, from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Recent years have seen remarkable consolidation in the information-content and technology industry, which includes disciplinary databases like HSTM and LLBA. The staggering amount of data that they comprehend makes them feel superlunary from the perspective of the mere human researcher, despite assurances of carefully considered curation. Take, for example, Clairvate’s current motto:
Our assets—including content, technologies, and deep expertise—drives better research outcomes for users and greater efficiency for the libraries and organizations that serve them.
Given how big all of this has become, it can be surprising to see evidence of human hands at the heart of contemporary information systems. I found one such example last spring in the correspondence of the Stanford Language Universals Project Records, a letter from Cyrus Sisson, once Editor-in-Chief of the LLBA, to Edith Moravcsik, Editor of the Working Papers on Language Universals, introduced in the previous post.
Stanford University, Language Universals Project, records 1967-1976, SCO449, Box 1, Binder 3, titled “Language Universals Project 1971 Correspondence.”
Sisson was writing to ask Moravcsik for a complimentary copy of the Working Papers in exchange for some otherwise free publicity:
We will be happy to publicize [the series] internationally, at no cost to you, in two ways: (1) We will reprint existing abstracts and prepare and publish original English summaries of those of your articles on language which appear without abstracts…(2) Once annually, we will print your complete subscription address so that users of LLBA who encounter your publication for the first time in our pages may subscribe to it.
He went on to provide some context to help Moravcsik weigh the request:
In the past three and a half years, LLBA has become known among researchers in the field of language and language behavior throughout the world as an indispensable tool of multidisciplinary application. More than 15,000 abstracts of articles selected from over 900 scientific publications printed in 25 different languages have now been produced.
Sisson had learned of the series through old-fashioned word-of-mouth—that is, from one Professor Donald M. Morehead, mentioned in the letter’s opening line. It seems that Moravcsik fulfilled the request, and today the database includes twenty titles from the publication.
Researchers today are likely accustomed to keyword searching across vast collections of full-text sources. They may be used to collecting citations with a plugin and a click. Given these developments in scholarly practice, it is stunning to consider the degree of personal investment that went in to abstracting during the 1970s. It also provides a helpful reminder that abstracting and indexing tools, however comprehensive and interoperable they may seem to be today, have their roots in small insider groups that did have “deep expertise” at the disciplinary level.
Works cited:
Blaemers, Jill. 2006. “A History of the Development and Maintenance of the Sociological Abstracts Thesaurus of Sociological Indexing Terms.” Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian, 25:1, 111-122. DOI: 10.1300/J103v25n01_05
