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The prospect of automatically generating abstracts has attracted researchers for some time, but the promise of superseding the human effort has yet to be realized. Surveys the approaches and techniques developed with the view to showing why this is so. Particular emphasis is placed on the requirements for the production of abstracts, which effectively serve their intended function, to show the ways in which this has hampered research in the past. Suggests that progress of automatic abstracting research may come about via the integration of some of the techniques into computerized information retrieval systems. This will allow researchers to shift the aim from reproducing the conventional benefits of abstracts to accentuating the advantages to users of computerized representation of information in large textual databases.

In May 1963 a survey was made of the sources of references to publications requested from the National Lending Library for Science and Technology. This survey, in conjunction with the one carried out by the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy on the information needs of physicists and chemists, throws some light on the needs of physicists. There is some evidence to suggest that physicists need a current title publication and improved indexes.

Publishers of some scientific journals and the ISO standard require or recommend specific information to be present in abstracts. However, little is known whether this is what scientists give when they write abstracts. The aim of this paper is to test the structure of abstracts in Czech, Slovenian and international scientific journals in the English language in the areas of library and information science (IS) and materials science (MS).

A total of 100 research paper abstracts were selected from each journal, and content analysis was performed both manually and using Weft QDA qualitative analysis software.

The results show that neither the ISO nor the Emerald structure is entirely appropriate. Abstracts in IS usually have the following structure: Ikaros (CZ): background, purpose of the research project; Knjižnica (SI): background, results only indicated; Journal of Documentation: results, methods, and purpose. In MS, the abstracts usually report on the following. Czech MS journals: background, methods, results; Materiali in Tehnologije (SI): methods, background; Materials Science and Technology (international): methods, results. The differences can in part be attributed to the varying disciplines and to the different roles of journals in professional societies and to cultural differences in perception regarding the role of abstracts.

It seems that purpose and results are usual for information science, while methods and results are more frequent for materials science.

This relatively small sample gives the first insight into the culture of writing abstracts in smaller research communities.

The frequency and consistency of selection by Physics Abstracts of astronomical articles from three major journals, Nature, Astrophysical Journal, and Icarus, have been investigated. This has involved an examination of the probability of selection of an article as a function of its subject matter. As a result, it is possible to specify which fields of astronomy are best covered by Physics Abstracts. The time‐lag between the appearance of these articles and the subsequent appearance of their abstracts has also been examined.

The only way to keep abreast of the constant advances in science appears to be the scanning of abstracting journals. The various Zentralblätter in Germany, the many ‘abstracts’ (Chemical Abstracts,Biological Abstracts, Psychological Abstracts, etc.) in the United States are best examples of attempts to aid the harassed scientist in quest of information on a wide and at the same time selective basis.

The suspension of some of the great German medical abstracting services during World War II and the keenly felt need for a comprehensive abstracting service in English, particularly for clinical medicine, brought about the establishment of Excerpta Medica as a non‐profit organization in 1947. Since its inception the service has expanded into several sections covering not only the usual divisions of clinical and preclinical medicine but also subjects like Cancer and Tuberculosis which are of present‐day interest and importance. Now that some of the German abstracting services have been revived there is apt to be some amount of duplication between them and Excerpta Medica, and the small library in particular has to evaluate them to get the best for the money or the most suitable for its purposes.

Drawing upon Alfred Sohn-Rethel's work, we argue that, just as capitalism produces abstract labor, it coproduces both abstract mind and abstract life. Abstract mind is the split between mind and nature and between subject/observer and observed object that characterizes scientific epistemology. Abstract mind reflects an abstracted objectified world of nature as a means to be exploited. Biological life is rendered as abstract life by capitalist exploitation and by the reification and technologization of organisms by contemporary technoscience. What Alberto Toscano has called “the culture of abstraction” imposes market rationality onto nature and the living world, disrupting biotic communities and transforming organisms into what Finn Bowring calls “functional bio-machines.”

This paper seeks to reconcile two very different views existing in the literature concerning how exchange and demand affect the magnitude of commodity values. Traditionally, value is considered to be created in production and subsequently realized in exchange. An alternative monetary approach posits that exchange itself contributes to the determination of commodity values. Proponents of each view claim that significant parts of Marx’s theory of value are compromised if their interpretation of the role of exchange is not adopted. Drawing on the work of Rosdolsky and Roberts, I argue that it is necessary to distinguish between the effects of exchange and demand. Exchange acts to reduce concrete, private labor to abstract social labor, while demand affects the magnitude of labor considered “socially necessary” in the sense of being expended in accordance with existing social need. I identify a new category of exchange value – the market-price of production – and use it to explain how changes in demand act to redistribute value across industries by affecting the magnitude of abstract labor considered to be socially necessary. In this way the major claim of the two approaches to exchange are reconciled. The magnitude of value is fully determined in production. At the same time monetary exchange effects, or brings about, a social division of labor by reducing concrete, private labor to abstract social labor and by distributing value according to social need as expressed by effective demand.

To understand the logic that pushes capitalism to imperialism requires us to question one of the fundamental categories of capital: abstract labor. Often ignored by the Marxist tradition, abstract labor is, however, by Marx’s own admission, one of its greatest discoveries. However, the different interpretations that have marked out the twentieth century have, most of the time, failed to grasp the profound originality of this concept. However, a correct understanding of abstract labor makes it possible to understand the dynamics and contradictions of capital and what distinguishes it from other forms of social organization. By showing that abstract labor is much more than a neutral economic category and that it is the general social mediator, we question the category of labor within capitalist society. It then becomes possible to identify the dynamics and contradictions of capital and why imperialism is necessary to it.

A survey was conducted among academic and special libraries to determine the extent to which these libraries have discontinued subscriptions to printed abstracting and indexing services as a result of the accessibility of equivalent databases online. Significant levels of cancellation were reported by libraries of all types. However, decisions to discontinue were only partly influenced by online access in some libraries and not at all influenced by online access in some others. It appears that online access has so far had only a relatively small effect on cancellation decisions. Some barriers to a more widespread migration to online access are identified. A noteworthy finding is that new libraries tend to move directly into electronic access on demand without ever going through the print on paper phase. A great accelerated level of migration is predicted for the next five to ten years.