CLEARING HOUSES : An Overview

 

 

Clearing Houses

 

Ø To understand the clearing house , first of all we have to understand that what is Information Centre.

 

u Information centre is an organisation that

 

v  (a) selects, acquires, stores and retrieves information in response to requests

v  (b) prepares abstracts, extracts and indexes of information, and

v (c) disseminates information in anticipation and in response to requests.

 

 

v Information centres are attached to highly specialised research and development (R&D) organisations. Information Centre provides various services such as referral service, literature search, translations, bibliographies, abstracting, etc. to its large number of users.

u There are varied forms of information centres viz.

 

(a) Information Analysis Centres

(b) Clearing Houses

(c) Data Centres and Data Banks.

 

So, now we will discuss  about the Clearing House.

 

 

u In scientific parlance, a clearing house is a relatively new concept. It represents a depository for documents with the additional objective of servicing as a central agency engaged in the distribution of information. It also includes such functions as collecting and maintaining records of research and development. Sometimes, subjective questions about items in these records are referred to the source and thus a clearing house may have to perform the function of a referral centre.

 

 

 

u Clearing houses are hybrid information service , which provide access through referral to appropriate resources or serving as a collection agency for special type of documentation in order to redistribute them upon request.

u Clearing houses compiles union catalogues and its lists for particular agencies which are not in position to have an established document handling system participate in it.

 

u In the United States as well as UK such clearing houses are in existence and are functioning. Most of the clearing houses have information gathering networks to acquire documents in their subject areas. They answer specific and general type of questions and may act as central searching place for enquiry especially relating to R&D reports.

 

Some examples are

 

u    Defence  Documentation Centre in USA.

u    Education Research Information Centre USA.

Functions of clearing houses

 

 

Characteristics of Clearing Houses

 

 

u They provide access information and data.

u They are fully decentralized.

u They provide networking and decision making.

u They provide sophisticated search, Cleary and retrieval methods.

 

Services of clearing house

 

q Provision of referral service is the most important activity of a house.

q Production of Audio Video Material

q Sometimes clearing house also offer SDI services.

q Consultancy a translation services are also offered by clearing house rarely.

q Compilation of union catalogue.

q Completes bibliographies of documents.

q Provide newsletters.

q Processing Data

q To collect data conduct research as well as publish materials (Publication).