Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Date of this Version
1949
Abstract
I. The Numerical Index and the Correlation Index, which was digitized previously, (http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libelecrefmat/4/) are indexes to using the Bibliography of Scientific and Industrial Reports which is a predecessor of Government Reports Announcements and Index and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) online database.
II. Some of the issues of the Bibliography of Scientific and Industrial Reports are available on the Web in two locations:
A. Volumes digitized by the Hahti Trust are available at: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009487225
B. Some entrys from the first volume area available in an XML database at: http://www.unl.edu/Bolin_resources/bsir-xml/
III. The Publication Board assigned PB numbers to documents listed in BSIR but the entries in the Bibliography are arranged in a classified list based on subject. The Numerical Index list the the first 95,000 PB numbers assigned with the volume and page number where the entries describing those documents appear in the Bibliography.
IV. The Correlation Index and several lists bound with the Numerical Index are supplementary indexes to the Bibliography of Scientific and Industrial Reports.
A. The Correlation Index matches the report numbers assigned to reports by the report originators with PB numbers.
B. The Numerical Index includes a number of supplementary indexes matching document numbers with PB numbers.
1. A German Patent Number Index
2. A Japanese Patent Number Index
3. A BIOS Final Report. BIOS was the British Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee. BIOS was set up to gather information about German and Japanese technology.
4. A CIOS Evaluation Reports index and a CIOS Roman Numeral Series index. CIOS was the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee. CIOS was a British-American organization set up to gather information about German and Japanese technology.
5. An FD Reports index. These "foreign documents" were prepared by the Technical Information and Document Unit of the British Board of Trade.
6. A FIAT Final Reports index. FIAT was the Foreign Intelligence Agency (Technical). FIAT was a American army organization set up the gather information about German and Japanese technology.
7. An MDDC and AEC Reports index. MDDC stands for Manhattan District Declassification Code. AEC stands for the Atomic Energy Commission. The Army Corps of Engineers Manhattan Engineering District was the organization that developed the the atomic bomb during World War II ( Project Manhattan). The Atomic Energy Commission was the civilian organization which succeeded the Manhattan Project.
8. An OSRD Reports index. OSRD stands for Organization of Scientific Research and Development. The OSRD was a United States organization set up to coordinate the US research and development effort during World War II. Much of the research was done by scientists and engineers in colleges and universities.
C. The Numerical Index volume also includes a bibliography of subject indexes, classified lists, and correlations. The handwritten notes on the bibliography apparently refer to resources available at Purdue in the 1940s.
V. The Numerical Index also includes an "Index to Classified German Patent Applications" by O. Willard Holloway and Dorothy Graf and an extensive bibliography of documents related to technical reports.
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The following review of the work appeared in Library Quarterly 20:3 (July 1950), pp. 213-215:
"Numerical Index to the Bibliography of Scientific and Industrial Reports," Vols. I-X (1946-48). Edited by the SCIENCE-TECHNOLOGY GROUP, SPECIAL LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION. New York: Special Libraries Association, 1949. Pp. viii+522. $10.00. (Litho-printed.)
This is the best, the most complete, and the most useful of all the indexes that have yet appeared for the incomparable Bibliography of Scientific and Industrial Reports issued by the Office of Technical Services, United States Department of Commerce. The work is important in its own right not merely as an index but also, in adept hands, as a reference tool. But, first, a few words about the publication which it indexes.
The Bibliography of Scientific and Industrial Reports is the most unusual source of scientific and technological information that has ever been presented to the learned and scientific world. This is not a bibliography in the usual sense, i.e., of printed and published material available in reasonable abundance; on the contrary, it is a listing and abstracting of materials of which most of the earlier titles have not even been published, even a lesser part printed, and vast quantities exist only (except for photoduplication) in unique typewritten reports or on film in one of the three libraries selected as their depositories. To quote Ralph R. Shaw: "Most of it is available in manuscript form only, or in a single, poor, microfilm copy." Thanks to those courageous men who had the vision to grasp the scientific and research potentials of this material, the learned world received more literature with which to work than there are trained scientists to use it. The project has opened vast sources of information that hitherto either had been sealed in the secret vaults of such institutions as the German Patent Office, I. G. Farben, and Krupp; had been held in military secrecy; or for some other reason had not been disseminated throughout the world of learning and technology. The Bibliography, therefore, is a most unusual collective addition to human knowledge and, as such, to human power.1
In the light of this background, the "Index" under review takes on added importance. Even before the first volume of the Bibliography was completed, the need for a numerical index was apparent. At the present time, with footnote citations and bibliographical references being cited by PB numbers2 or by "correlated" reports in the world's scientific and technical literature, the "Index" has become indispensable. The Science-Technology Group of the Special Libraries Association, Philadelphia chapter, early recognized this need, and the initial organization to this end was set up under the direction of Mr. Kenneth H. Fagerhaugh, now research librarian at the John Crerar Library, though his name is omitted from the prefatory commendations. The project was carried to completion under the chairmanship of Miss Anne L. Nicholson.
The present work indexes by PB numbers the abstracts, reports, patents, etc., listed in the first ten volumes of the Bibliography, covering the years 1946-48. This objective has been achieved admirably. Further, it shows at once how completely the numbered reports are in-dexed, though it must be understood, and has been amply publicized, that only a small part of the tons of material collected, running to billions of pages, can possibly be listed. There are surprisingly few breaks in the numbering sequence; moreover, cancellations are indicated by XXXX.
The PB index is followed by the numerical indexes to German and Japanese patents. In the neighborhood of fifteen thousand German patents, most of which are not listed in Chemical Abstracts, appear here for the first time outside the German Patent Office. Of Japanese patents more than five hundred are listed.
The wealth of the German patent material can be estimated from the fact that, for the first time in history, I. G. Farben chemical patents are being revealed to the world, according to Dr. Julius Alsberg, chief of the Technical and Industrial Intelligence Division of OTS, and thousands of other German patents are being made known outside the German Patent Office.
Next follow the "Correlations with PB numbers" for B.I.O.S. Final Reports, C.I.O.S. Evaluation Reports, C.I.O.S. Roman Numeral Series, F.D. Reports, F.I.A.T. Final Reports, M.D.D.C. and A.E.C.D. Reports, and, finally, O.S.R.D. Reports.3
According to the Preface, this part has been supplied by Mr. O. Willard Holloway and Mrs. Dorothy Graf, both of the Library Division of the OTS. Since the index proper is by PB numbers only, the importance of these "correlations" is obvious.
In the hands of a capable user, this can prove to be an invaluable part of the "Index." It is regrettable that not more series have been so correlated. Must we assume that demand and/or service failed to justify carrying these corre-lations further?4
A highly useful section is the "Index to Classified German Patent Applications," again by O. Willard Holloway and Dorothy Graf (pp. 497-5I7). These German patent applications are on film and listed by PB numbers. Outside the German Patent Office they can probably be found only through the Bibliography. And that is where the classification becomes important. A patent consultant or applicant can peruse the appropriate classifications by means of the index; as to dates, according to the Preface, the United States Commissioner of Patents has ruled that "the date of release following declassification is the effective date of publication within the meaning of the statutes."5
First are given the class numbers and what they stand for; then follow the reel numbers with PB numbers arranged according to classes. Moreover, printed volumes containing title of the application, application number, and name of applicant are available from the OTS. Each volume covers a specific class or classes. Twelve of these volumes were available as of January, 1949, and a table on pages 500-501 of the "Index" lists them by classes indexed, by PB number, by volume and page where described in the Bibliography, and by price. These volumes in themselves add materially to the reference literature on German patents.
The work concludes with a "Bibliography: Subject Indices, Classified Lists, Correlations" (pp. 519-22), available from various government offices and elsewhere.
Emory C. Skarshaug
Federal-Mogul Corporation Library
Ann Arbor, Michigan
1. For further information on the formation and development of the Office of Technical Services and the Bibliography see the following references: (1) "Scientific Information from Government-sponsored Research and Enemy Sources Being Released," Chemical and Engineering News, XXIII, No. 19, 1720 ff. (this gives the text of the Executive Order 9568 [June 8, 1945] and Executive Order 9604 [August 25, 1945], "Providing for the Release of Scientific Information" by establishing the Publication Board, now known as the "OTS," and its work); (2) Walter J. Murphy, "The Job Still Is Unfinished: Some Thoughts on the Collection and Dissemination of Technical and Scientific Information from Occupied Countries," Chemical and Engineering News, XXIII, No. 17, 1528-31; (3) Ralph R. Shaw, "The Publication Board," College and Research Libraries, VII, 105-8; (4) Jerrold Orne, "Library Division of the Office of the Publication Board," Special Libraries, XXXVII, No. 7, 203-9; (5) John C. Green, "Scientific Information from Enemy Sources and Government-sponsored R esearch," Chemical and Engineering News, XXIV, No. 13, 1795-99; and (6) Lawrence S. Thompson, "The Bibliography of Scientific and Industrial Reports," Journal of Documentation, III, No. 1, 3-8.
2. A "'PB number" is the number assigned to a report or document by the Office of Technical Services, originally known as the "Publication Board."
3. B.I.O.S.: British Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee; C.I.O.S.: Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee; F.D.: Foreign Document (Great Britain Board of Trade); F.I.A.T.: Field Information Agency, Technical; M.D.D.C.: Manhattan District Declassification Code; A.E.C.D.: Atomic Energy Commission Documents; O.S.R.D.: Office of Scientific Research and Development
4. For a list of the series analyzed in the Bibliography see Miss Grace Swift's Government Document Series Analyzed by the Office of Techncal Services (Washington, 1947).
5. Quoted from the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office, March 11, 1947.
Comments
Copyright (c) 1949 by the Special Library Association. Digitized and used by permission. Special thanks to Purdue University Library for furnishing the scanning copy.