Bradford Distribution: An Application to the Study of Core Collection of Periodicals in Aeronautics and Related Subjects

Abstract

The paper describes a study undertaken by the Library of the National Aeronautical Laboratory (NAL) on the pattern of output of journal literature in aeronautics and related subjects to obtain a fairly reliable estimate of the minimum size of the 'core journals' through the application of Bradford distribution. A comparison has been made of the desirable size of this core with the Laboratory's collection of journal titles on its subscription list. For the purpose of this study, only the English language journals and full translations of journals into English have been considered. The keynote of the study is (a) the coverage of world journal literature in the English language through the. international indexing journal 'International Aerospace Abstracts' (IAA); and (b) the analysis available from it for predicting and evaluating the extent of gap that needs to be filled for obtaining a 'corrected core strength' of the population of journals of high productivity that ensurs 960/0 coverage of literature output from English periodicals in aeronautics and related subjects.