Sources of documentation and information in the instrument industry

Abstract

The second five year plan sets tremendous tasks for the Hungarian instrument industry to perform, imposing the necessity of making use to the full of the pertinent technical literature. The object of the present paper is to review in detail such technical documents, primary and secondary, as can not be dispensed with in the information service covering the instrument industry. In the field of primary technical literature the following kinds of publications are dealt with: books, periodicals, reports of researches, congressional proceedings; dissertations, documents resulting from international cooperation; innovations, patents, standards, prospectus; trade catalogues, and translations. Each kind of publication is illustrated by way of adequate instances and the sources most widely used in the range of the particular publication are also pointed out.
As for the secondary documents, in the first place Hungarian and foreign technical bibliographies, catalogues and lists of books are dealt with, listing all the publications of paramount importance from the point of view of information. A survey is also given on the Hungarian and foreign abstracting journals which are indispensable for the instrument industry.
The paper also expounds on the institutions of information in the instrument industry, such as the centres of technical documentation and information and the technical libraries. Apart from the institutes of documentation for the instrument industry in Hungary and abroad, it dwells on the present day state of technical libraries of the Hungarian instrument-making undertakings (with two tables for illustration added). Starting from the evaluation of the tabulated data, characteristic features as well as deficiencies in the working of special libraries are pointed out and finally the ways for future development are hinted at.