College and Research Libraries By DWIGHT E. GRAY Scientists and Government Research Information W HEN SciENTIST Alpha, who is en-gaged in research at the University of Beta or at Gamma Laboratories, Inc., seeks conventionally-published literature in any field or phase of science, he has available a number of reliable, well-estab- lished channels to facilitate his quest. For one thing, the scope of the contents of most scientific journals is more or less 4efinitely defined. Also, professional peri- odicals are published in volumes and numbers and usually carry annual author and subject indexes. In addition, various abstracting and indexing services provide a secondary approach to the contents of these publications. ·Thus, Dr. Alpha-or his technical librarian-can conduct the search along quite well-lighted and ad- equately-mapped publication and dissem- ination highways. But suppose our scientist wishes to de- termine whether or not any results of sig- nificance in his field of research interest have appeared in the body of printed and near-print material we call scientific re- port literature. It is estimated-probably conservatively-that upwards of 20,000 unclassified scientific reports are issued annually by the hundreds of laboratories engaged wholly or partially in Federally- supported scientific research. With the ~x­ ception of certain intra-laboratory senes, these documents follow no pattern even vaguely resembling the volume-number system of journals. Very few scientific re- ports are abstracted or indexed by ~he standard secondary publication media, and, in general, each issuingagency estab- Dr. Gray is program director7 Office of Scientific Information) National Science Foundation. ' JANUARY) 1957 lishes its own rules for their preparation. They are subject to little standardization of style, format, or stature of content and have as almost their only common at- . tributes those of being technical and of appearing as pamphlets wit~ rectangu~ar . pages. Here, Scientist Alpha IS faced with a search problem which is much more complex than the one that confronted him in the first instance. To make this scientific report literature approximately as available to the average research scientist as is conventionally-pub- lished material is the principal objective of the Government Research Information program of the National Science Founda- tion. To describe this program and the thinking that preceded its initiation is the purpose of this paper. . Before deciding to initiate a report In- formation service with the obJective stat- ed above, the Foundation considered three principal questions: 1. Do these thousands of unclassified scientific reports contain substantial amounts of significant scientific informa- tion? 2. If so, does an appreciable fraction of such information fail to appear rea- sonably promptly in regularly-published form? . 3. How well does existing machinery for announcing and disseminating scien- tific reports meet the needs of research scientists? Regarding the first question, the very circumstances under which these docu- ments are prepared lead one to exp~ct them to contain appreciable quantities of worth-while scientific information. Many-perhaps most-act~ally are _re- ports by a contractor to his contracting 23 ---------------------------" agency on work accomplished with that agency's supporL Since so large a fraction of scientific research today is at least part- ly supported by some branch of the Fed- eral Government, much of what is newest and most important in current scientific experimentation first sees the light of publication day in technical reports. As evidence of a more concrete nature, one can cite certain statistics on the operation of existing information dissemination ac- tivities. During the fiscal year 1955, the Armed Services Technical Information Agency (ASTIA), which serves only Gov- ernment agencies and contractors and han- dles only Department of Defense reports, supplied over 280,000 technical reports on request to its more than 3,500 users. It also prepared, again on request, al- most 1,400 separate bibliographies of scientific reports listing a total of over 150,000 items. The Office of Technical Services of the Department of Commerce, which announces and offers for sale cer- tain technical reports on Government- supported research and development, sold some 172,000 such documents during 1955. Similar data can be cited for the in- formation services of the Atomic Energy Commission and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics . Consequent- ly, the National Science Foundation had little doubt but what an affirmative reply could be given to the first question. The answer to the second question seemed quite definitely to be that an ap- preciable fraction of the information in scientific reports does not appear prompt- ly in conventional publications. One study of approximately 1,200 unclassified Department of Defense reports showed that nothing whatever had been pub- lished after four years from about one- fourth of the reports which the authors themselves believed contained "publish- able" information. All such information in somewhat fewer than half of the re- ports have appeared in print, but with time lags from a few weeks to four years; the average time between report issuance and journal publication for the sample studied was about a year and a half. Fur- thermore, among the data which journal editors ordinarily would not find accept- able for publication is a great deal of in- formation which potentially is sufficient- ly useful to research scientists to warrant taking special steps to insure its continu- ing availability. Such material includes, for example, detailed tables and other data which must be eliminated or dras- tically condensed to 1neet journal space requirements and negative experimental results which editors ordinarily do not publish but which, if adequately dissem- inated, often can prevent costly repeti- tion of unsuccessful investigations. Study of the point raised in the third question led to the conclusion that ex- isting report announcement and dissem- ination activities do not fully meet the needs of U. S. research scientists in the field of Government research informa- tion. This is not because of any failure by existing activities to fulfill their missions; the situation stems rather from the na- ture of those missions. For example, the information branches of the Atomic En- ergy Commission and the National Ad- visory Committee for Aeronautics quite proper! y are organized to serve their re- spective departments and contractors. The Armed Services Technical Information Agency, as noted previously, deals only with Department of Defense reports and must limit its services to the Department, its contractors, and pther Government agencies. The Office of Technical Serv- ices comes the nearest to meeting the ob- jective which is the Foundation's con- cern, but its report coverage bas been predominantly in the development rather than the research field and its users have been largely from industry. The net re- sult has been that the scientist engaged in research not specifically supported under Government contract has had no chan- nel, established specifically with his needs in mind, through which he can learn whether or not reports are being issued 24 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES on Government-supported research in his field s of interest and, if so, how copies can b e consulted or obtained. It is this gap which the Foundation's Gov~rnm~nt Research Information program 1s trying to fill . As has already been stated, the funda- mental objective of the Government R e- searchinformation program is the achieve- ment of maximum availability to U. S. research scientists of the significant, un- classified information in scientific reports on Federally-supported research. In the Foundation's thinking, satisfying this ob- jective requires as a minimum that sci- entists be provided with three services: I. Automatic announcement of the bulk of Government research reports by means of a bulletin or other medium to which they can subscribe; this service should list available reports, indicate how copies can be obtained, and, if possible, provide abstracts or annotations. 2. A reference collection of reports on unclassified, Government-supported re- search-together with appropriate cat- alogs-which is available to everyone on the same basis as are the collections of a conventional reference library . 3. A consultation service to assist them in learning whether or not unclassified scientific reports are being issued in their fields of interest and, if so, how copies can be obtained. The Foundation recognized that the kinds of machinery necessary to provide some of these services already exist in cer- tain of the information agencies referred to previously. It resolved, therefore, in its approach to this problem, to make maximum use of such activities, supple- menting them wherever feasib le in pref- erence to initiating new and possibly over- lapping projects. As a result, the Govern- ment Research Information program as now set up specifically involves two grants to existing Governments agencies and the operation of one activity within the foun- dation. To meet the first of the three min- JANUARY) 1957 imum requirements-that of an auto- matic report announcement service-the Foundation is providing. supplemental support to an existing Government agen- cy, the Office of Technical Services (OTS) of the Department of Commerce. 1 For several years, OTS has published the monthly subscription journal, U. S. Gov- ernm ent R esearch R eports (USGRR), which is an annotated listing of technical reports on federally-supported research and development. It has been announc- ing some 6,000 such documents annua)ly. As noted previously, the re.ason this serv- ice did not already fully meet the report announcement needs of research scien- tists stemmed from the pattern of its cov- erage. Although there was no specific policy of excluding basic science material, the circumstances of OTS' support and the fact that OTS' users were primarily from industry combined to m_ake its em- phasis in this area considerably less than that in engineering and the applied sci- ences. Th~ Foundation's supplementary support, however, is enabling OTS to car- ry on a vigorous acquisition program among Government agencies in the basic research fields and thereby increase its coverage in this area to a level commen- surate with that of its applied science cov- erage in the past. The objective of OTS and the Founda- tion in this phase of the program is for the OTS journal eventually to include in its coverage every significant, unclassified scientific report on Government-support- ed research and to make each such report available for purchase in some economic, legible form. USGRR provides an ideal announcement and dissemin~tion .chan- nel for smaller agencies whose technica~ reports really should be made ge.nerall y available bljt whose report reprodu~tion and handling facilities are limited. Such an agency can have its reports announced in this journal without having _to assume 1 Detailed information on the operation of OTS can be obtained from the office of Technical Services, De· pa rtment of Commerce, Washington 25, D.C. 25 any responsibility for filling requests for copies, since the announcement can in- dicate that photo-reproductions are avail- able for purchase through the regular OTS channels. It seemed to the Foundation that the Library of Congress 'Yas by far the most appropriate agency to provide the report reference service which is the second min- imum requirement mentioned above. The Library's holdings already contained large numbers of unclassified scientific reports on Federally-sponsored research, and such documents were being received regularly from various agencies. Also, and more important, providing biblo- graphic services of the kind envisioned here is a field in which the Library has had decades of experience and is recog- nized as a world authority. Consequently, the two agencies entered into an agree- ment whereby the Foundation provides sufficient financial support to permit the Library to extend its normal biblio- graphic treatment of scientific reports to include establishing these documents on a basis such that scientists and others can consult them in the same way they now use books in a reference library. Readers have free access to the catalogs covering these reports, and reference assistants bring them copies of any of the docu- ments they wish to read. Anyone wishing a copy for retention will be referred to OTS, if it stocks the report, or to the Li- brary's Photo-duplication Service, if a photo-reproduction is desired. 2 Close liaison is being maintained be- tween the Library of Congress and Office of Technical Services phases of the pro- gram, and it is anticipated that, once the activity is fully established, the former's "consultation" collection will . contain as a minimum copies of all reports which the latter announces in its journal. Ac- tually, the two agencies have had a coop- 2 D etailed information on the operation of the LC report reference activity can be obtained frol!l the Science Division, Library of Congress, Washmgton 25, D .C. erative arrangement for several years under which the Library's Photo-duplica- tion Service fills all requests for microfilm or photostat copies of documents listed in USGRR. Thus, even before the Foun- dation's program was thought of, OTS had been sending the Library copies of most of the reports announced in its journal. The third minimum requirement-that of providing a consultation and steering service on Government scientific reports -is being met within the Foundation's Office of Scientific Information in a sec- tion called "Government Research Infor- mation Clearinghouse." Here the at- tempt is being made to provide a center to which any scientist can turn for infor- mation on such matters as where in Gov- ernment or under Government sponsor- ship unclassified research is going on in any given subject field; whether unclassi- fied reports have been or are being issued on such work; whether, and if so how, the requestor can either see or obtain copies of these reports; and the like. The Clearinghouse neither maintains inven- tories of copies of reports nor obtains and retransmits documents. In other words, it is a center for providing information about Government reports but not one for disseminating the reports themselves. Requests for information are accepted by telephone, by mail, or in person. Letters should be addressed to the Government Research Information Clearinghouse, Office of Scientific Information, National Science Foundation, Washington 25, D.C. The field of Government scientific re- port literature is extensive and complex and largely lacking in the kind of over-all guidebook and publications "Baedeker" which exists for conventionally-pub- lished material. Therefore, the principal reference tool of the Clearinghouse must be the personal knowledge and experi- ence of its reference staff. The present small group is composed of individuals 26 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES who for some years have been engaged in reference work in this field. Supplemen- tary bibliographic aids include project summaries, accession lists, bibliogra- phies, classification systems, organization charts, and, of particular importance, personal contacts with technical librar- ians and other information experts in Government agencies which conduct and sponsor scientific research. Because this paper is being written only a few weeks after the initial an- nouncement of the Clearinghouse, no very extensive body of actual experience can be called upon as a basis for predict- ing the general nature of the requests the group will be asked to handle. Even the relatively small number received to date, however, have covered a fairly wide range of subject matter and include queries about Government reports in the fields of chemistry of animal venoms, glass-to-metal seals, plant physiology, in- dium, experimentally-induced tumors in mice, pulmonary physiology, metal cast- ing, medicinal chemistry, diatoms, and others. In summary, the "food, shelter, and clothing" of the scientist's technical in- formation needs may be said to be the answers to "What exists?," "Where is it?" and "How can I get it?" In the fi~ld of conventionally-published material, pri- mary and secondary journals, together with various well-established associated aids, long have been providing these ne- cessities of scientific information life. Through its relatively new Government Research Information program, as de- scribed above, the National Science Foundation hopes in the course of time to make equally as accessible to U. S. scientists the contents of Government scientific report literature. Because cer- tain phases of the task already are being partially performed as by-products of ex- isting operations, it believes this objec- tive can be accomplished best by combin- ing supplementary support of such going projects in other agencies with the initi~­ tion of new programs where gaps exist. It is on this basis that the program is being planned and conducted. Lilly Foundation Grant for College Libraries A grant of $26,000 has been made to the American Library Association by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. , of Indianapolis, Ind., to be distributed in sub-grants to four-year colleges and universities in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. The purpose of the grant is "to promote more extensive and imaginative use of library resources by undergraduate students." The grants will be administered by the Committee on Founda- tion Grants of the Association of College and Reference Libraries, which will prepare a full statement of the types of programs for which grants may be made. This statement, with application forms, will be sent to all four-year institutions of higher education, both public and private, in the five states. This material is expected to be mailed out before the Spring of 1957 so that the grants may be made in April or May and the programs get under way the following Fall. JANUARY_, 1957 27