ABSTRACT
Report material presents special problems in cataloguing, particularly because of the many varieties of originating organization and report reference numbers. In general the rules and practices in cataloguing report literature are less rigorously followed than those for ordinary books. Traditional librarians have felt that the report represents ephemeral material, and that it will be published in a different form later. Most information centres will use printed forms on which the cataloguing information and movement of the report through the various stages are recorded. The various clues on a report which help to identify it include the following: corporate author, that is the organization which carried out the research and produced the report; and agency, that is the organization which sponsored the work, usually under contract, of the corporate author. An abstract of a scientific or technical report can be defined as a statement giving in concise form the purpose, methodology, results and conclusions presented in the original document.
