A determination of the bibliographic and graphic characteristics of current research literature in the language sciences is essential to the design of an information system intended to offer primary and secondary publication services. The results of a comparative study of bibliographic practices in language sciences secondary publications are given in the first section. The second section discusses the general typographic aspects of primary journals in the language sciences. The requirements of the character set are considered in the third section. The final section describes some of the steps taken by the pilot project, Language Information Network and Clearinghouse System (LINCS), in the experimental development of an automated bibliographic publication service. The work contains a substantial number of tables and figures. (CFM)