COST RESEARCH ON A LIBRARY SERVICE

The present Gear Divisions Library of David Brown Industries Ltd, has been in operation since the late 1920s. Although its history is chequered with periods of relative inactivity its growth has been, in general terms, continual. In its early days the technical interests it had to serve were more varied than at present and ranged mainly over gears, machine tools and foundry practice. In 1951 the company decided to ‘divisionalize’ its growing interests in that the activities of the parent works were restricted to the design and manufacture of gears and gear units. This reorganization also restricted the subject interests of the library, which tended more and more over the next five years to serve the Development Department, of which it formed one part, and even then to provide little more than book and periodicals services.