Ellis Mount and Wilda B. Newman
Our society could well be said to run on information. We use information so much that we tend to take it for granted. We wake up to radio broadcasts of the latest news or the…
Abstract
Our society could well be said to run on information. We use information so much that we tend to take it for granted. We wake up to radio broadcasts of the latest news or the daily weather forecast. During the day we need data about many things—the price of goods we intend to purchase, the technical features of a service proposed for the business we run, the schedule of appointments for next week, and so on during working hours. We may have called colleagues for data, used a library, or had a search done on a computerized database. As we return home we might peruse reports and correspondence received during the day. Before the day comes to an end we have undoubtedly read at least one newspaper and perhaps checked the television guide to find out the schedule of programs. Our waking hours are filled with accessing and evaluating information.
Thomas W. Conkling and Linda R. Musser
Scientific findings have been announced in technical reports since the early 1900s and, over the years, these reports have become important information resources in many areas of…
Abstract
Scientific findings have been announced in technical reports since the early 1900s and, over the years, these reports have become important information resources in many areas of engineering and science. Issued in modest numbers until the 1940s, increased government spending on military and scientific research caused a boom in the production of technical reports. This situation has continued to the present, with approximately 100,000 reports being published annually, representing research activity in the tens of billions of dollars.