PRODUCT INFORMATION SERVICES‐SOME COMPARISONS

About a year ago at a meeting of English Electric librarians at our Dunchurch Staff Training Centre the problem of the increasing number of firms marketing trade literature retrieval and dissemination systems was raised in the ‘any other business’. As there was little time at that stage to discuss the problem in detail, I was asked to produce with some urgency a brief report on the existing situation. It was realized that many in the company, both in libraries and outside them, were being pestered by salesmen with requests to be allowed to demonstrate their product. Although the decentralization of the company meant that any such report could only be a recommending document it was felt by all present at the meeting that it would be extremely helpful in giving the facts as clearly and in an unbiased way as possible. The report was completed in late June and led to the publication of an article based on it in the Electrical Review, 20th September 1969.