Introduction

Unpublished reports normally have a distribution controlled by their originators, or by an authorized distribution centre. The report is an important source of information. Its elusive character in the past has caused some librarians, publishers, and documentalists to despise it as a source, but its vitality and flexibility as a medium of communication have assured its survival. The greatest stimulus to interest in the report came with the Second World War. Innumerable reports were circulated during wartime in an informal communication network. In 1948 the Royal Society held a conference on scientific information at which subjects discussed included production and distribution of scientific literature, abstracting, subject classification, mechanical selection and mechanized distribution of information. One problem that constantly recurs is that of making one monograph equally useful to different types of reader as the senior and junior staff of information centres, to users of these centres and to students in schools of information and library science.