CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
In July 1957 the National Science Foundation awarded a grant of£10,000 to A^lib for an investigation to be made into the comparative
efficiency of four indexing systems.

This work was to be undertaken

at the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, England, under the directionof the Librarian, Mr. Cyril Cleverdon.

The grant made was to cover

the first stage of the project which involved the indexing by the foursystems of 18,000 r e s e a r c h reports and periodical articles in thegeneral field of aeronautical engineering, with half of the documents
dealing with the specialised subject of high speed aerodynamics.

Threeindexers were required for the work, and they took up their appointmentson the 1st April, 1958.
The staff consisted originally of Mr. J . R . S h a r p , Mr. J . F Kadlowand Mr. T. Opatowski.

Mr. J . R Sharp is a Fellow of the Library

Association, and after serving in the Royal Air Force from 1940-1945,
returned to work at Hull Public Library until 1954, when he took theposition of Technical Librarian with Short Bros. & Harland Ltd. , alarge aircraft firm in Northern Ireland.

There he had experience inindexing the type of literature covered by the project and he resignedthat post to join the project staff.
Mr. J . F . Kadlow spent two years with Northumberland County
Library before joining the Royal Air Force for two years as a NationalServiceman.

He then spent a year at Newcastle School of Librarianshipwhere he passed the Registration examination of the Library Association.
For a further year he was again with the County Library before joining
the staff, but had had no experience in the type of work involved in theproject.

For the third position Mr. T.Opatowski was appointed.

Ke hadcompleted a post-graduate course in aeronautics, and had spent several
years in aircraft research work.

He showed a real aptitude for the work

and was a stimulating and valuable member of the team, particularly inthe early stages of the work when a great deal of time had to be spent inevolving satisfactory methods for setting up the various systems andwith the revision of the schedules of the Faceted Classification.

However,when more time had to be given to the basic work of indexing documents,
he found it increasingly onerous, and by October 1958 came to thedecision that he would not be able to continue to do for two years thetype of work that the project involved, and with reluctance his resignation
was accepted.
There is no doubt that this stage of the project imposed a severe
mental strain on the indexers, and it is to the credit of the project staff
that, in spite of unexpected problems in the early stages the work wascompleted in the scheduled time.

Following the resignation ofMr. Opatowski, I considered it would be inadvisable to take the risk of
appointing another technical person, due to the danger of their underestimating the difficulties involved, and as a result, Miss B. Warburton
was appointed and joined the staff on the 1st January, 1959.
Miss Warburton, an Associate of the Library Association, started herc a r e e r in Sheffield Public L i b r a r i e s , and for five years had been
librarian of the United Steel Co. Ltd. in Sheffield.
The Council of Aslib appointed an Advisory Committee consistingof Mr. B.C. Vickery, at that time Librarian of Imperial ChemicalIndustries, Akers Research Laboratories and now Deputy Director ofthe Lending Library Unit, Mr. J . F a r r a d a n e , Information Officer, Tate- 3 -& Lyle Ltd. , and Mr. R.C.Wright, Librarian, Royal Aircraft
Establishment.

In addition Mr. W.K.Lowry, Manager, TechnicalInformation L i b r a r i e s , Bell Telephone Laboratories, agreed to serve
as a corresponding member, and, following his appointment as Aslib
Research D i r e c t o r , Mr. C.W.Hanson became a committee member
in January 1959. This committee met at Cranfield on five occasions.

CHAPTER 2GENERAL OBJECTIVES OF THE INVESTIGATION"The vastly increased sums of money which have been devoted toresearch have brought about two major changes which affect bibliographical work.

The volume of papers issued is now vastly greaterthan in the p r e - w a r y e a r s , and also the number of individuals ororganisations working in the same field of knowledge has increased
considerably.

There is no longer the situation where a scientist could

keep abreast of developments over a fairly broad field of knowledge andbe reasonably certain of knowing, either personally or by reputation,
most of the other scientists concerned in similar work. Nowadays it
is generally agreed that even the specialist is, in many fields ofknowledge, unable to give more than a cursory glance at a large
proportion of the papers which are of potential value to him.

A resultof this is that, whenever a new problem is approached, a scientist is
far less likely to have a complete knowledge of the work already done,
and therefore must make greater use of bibliographical aids.