AMERICAN TECHNICAL REPORTS. Their Importance and How to Obtain Them
| Published date | 01 April 1953 |
| Pages | 211-219 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026196 |
| Date | 01 April 1953 |
| Author | JOHN E. WOOLSTON |
The Journal
of
DOCUMENTATION
Volume
9
DECEMBER
1953
Number 4
AMERICAN
TECHNICAL REPORTS
Their
Importance
and
How to
Obtain
Them
by JOHN E. WOOLSTON
Introduction
IT
was estimated in 1952 that the United States was then spending more than
3,000 million dollars a year on research and development. Over half of this
was paid for by the Federal Government and, more particularly, two-fifths
of it by the Department of Defense. Much of the research made possible
with these tremendous government funds is of a fundamental character and,
in the military sense, unclassified; a further large proportion is in the nature
of applied science or development and
has
far-reaching industrial significance.
The scientific work carried out for the Federal Government, either in its own
laboratories or under contract in American industry and universities, is thus
of interest to scientists and technologists everywhere. The sponsoring agency
which pays for the work naturally has control over the distribution of the
scientific information which results from it. The international scientific
community has no prescriptive right to this information, but fortunately the
agencies concerned do make much of it available.
Much of the information derived from government-sponsored research in
the United States first appears in the form of technical reports. These reports
vary widely in quality, content, and format. Some, of course, are of very
high standard and are issued as priced publications. However, the bulk are
prepared for the benefit of the agency which paid for the work, and distribu-
tion to other institutions is frequently limited. The limitation is not neces-
sarily the result of policy; in many instances it is simply too costly to prepare
the very large number of copies that would be needed for distribution to all
the institutions that might be interested. It has been argued that all the worth
while material in unpublished technical reports is reissued subsequently in
journals or other publications, and that the reports themselves are not worth
the trouble they cause to librarians. This argument is considered below, but
it is certainly true that the unpublished technical reports are indispensable to
those requiring rapid notification of the results of
U.S.
Government-spon-
sored research. It is also true that much time and energy are devoted to the
collection and dissemination of reports; a book (1) on the subject has been
Q
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