56 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I07 



on how to get information on weather conditions in certain remote 

 areas. Dr. ColHns sent a sample of observations on Alaska taken 

 from his own diary and added a list of names of others who might 

 have similar data on many parts of the world. 



One case illustrates advice followed by the actual execution of 

 the project. Military Intelligence came to the Board for advice on 

 how to test the linguistic proficiency of several officers before select- 

 ing them as Russian translators. The problem was complicated by the 

 need for speed and by the fact that the testing would have to be done 

 in the vicinities of Seattle, Camp Wallace, Tex., Rapid City, S. Dak., 

 and Las Vegas, N. Mex. The Board undertook to do this. Names 

 of competent testers in these four regions were supplied by the Ameri- 

 can Council of Learned Societies. The Assistant Director telegraphed 

 the testers, stating the request, the dates, the hours. The tests were 

 given and the reports made by telegram. The original request was 

 received on November 28, 1942, and a letter thanking the Board for 

 the job is dated December 2, 1942. 



Analysis 



The volume of the Board's information service is reasonably im- 

 pressive. Some 460 question and answer records are on file, and it 

 is estimated by the staff that the unrecorded questions would more 

 than double this total. Furthermore, the great volume of this service 

 was concentrated in the first year and a half. A simple graph of the 

 recorded "spot" requests by 6-month periods shows a steady down- 

 ward trend from the second half of 1942 to the first half of 1945. 

 During the first six months recorded questions averaged about 28 a 

 month, as against 5 a month in 1945. 



Following the categories under which the information service was 

 described, an analysis shows that personnel and source requests were 

 the most popular (about 30 percent each), requests for facts and 

 materials were next (about 15 percent each), and the categories of 

 orientation and advice split the remaining 10 percent. It is impos- 

 sible to estimate the amount of placement service owing to the lack 

 of records. Some shift in emphasis can be noted in the 3 years under 

 observation. In the first half of this period, questions about personnel 

 definitely dominate. In the second half, sources lead, personnel is 

 less important, and materials are more in demand. A shift is also 

 noted in the nature of the questions, from immediate knowledge 

 about war areas to interest in postwar planning. 



A review of the agencies which submitted the requests for in for- 



