Abstract: | This paper will consider some relatively unorthodox, fairly bibliographically
free aspects of magazine selection an approach in the worst
tradition of the essentially fact-for-fact oriented library literature. However,
anyone seeking orthodox information about indexes, abstracts or access to
bibliographical information on magazines is referred to WinchelFs Guide to
Reference Books where it is all put precisely and accurately. In a more discursive
readable fashion, William Huff has achieved much the same thing in his
exellent article "Periodicals" in the January 1967, issue of Library Trends.
Also, in my book, Magazines for Libraries, one will find a relatively exhaustive
general and subject bibliography to the field.
Discussing what he terms a psychograph of adolescent rebellion, Bruno
Bettelheim states that today's youth are frustrated "because modern
technology has made them obsolete they have become socially irrelevant and,
as persons, insignificant."
1 Much the same might be said of the present art of
magazine selection. Technology, from the "until forbidden" order to reliance
on indexes and computerized records apparently has made much of the
process obsolete. Large libraries, at any rate, now no longer select as much as
collect. In so doing, it seems to me, they have made the magazine socially
irrelevant, at least to all but a small, highly selected segment of the
community. |