insofar as books or monographs are 

 concerned, but rarely is sufficient at- 

 tention given to periodical articles, 

 which are far more important to the 

 scientist. Furthermore, these services 

 are frequentlv restricted in practice 

 to older workers of distinguished rep- 

 utation. The young man who wishes 

 to be informed about past work is 

 frequentlv compelled to divert much 

 energy which could be better spent 

 in his laboratory. 



It seems probable that use of cat- 

 aloguing and sorting devices now 

 available in the form of business 

 machines and the use of microfilm 

 technique might go far to improve 

 present methods of searching the 

 literature and making bibliographies. 

 Other technical advances mav be ex- 



pected lurther to simplify the prob- 

 lem. Adequate utilization of techni- 

 cal advance, however, would mean 

 reclassifving all scientific literature 

 for at least the past several decades. 

 In the future this problem could be 

 met by arranging for classification of 

 every article prior to publication ac- 

 cording to some prearranged system. 

 Again the Committee wishes to 

 emphasize that it is not equipped to 

 make specific recommendations in re- 

 gard to technical library practice. It 

 merely wishes to call attention to the 

 existence of problems which, because 

 of their magnitude and the large 

 measure of centralization necessary 

 for solution, appear to be proper sub- 

 jects of Federal concern. 



121 



