PROBLEMS WITH REPORTS: PARTICULARLY MICROFICHE REPORTS

When I was first approached to give this talk I was faced with an immediate dilemma. How does one define reports and worse still how can one define a microfiche report? It can be said that as a general rule reports have an alpha‐numeric identification code, but this will convey different ideas to different people. Many experts tend to agree that you cannot define a report, but if you see one you can generally recognize it as such. This is probably true as far as full size reports are concerned, but is far more complicated if one has only the micro‐images of a microfiche to go by. It is true that generally there is an eye‐readable title line, incorporating an alpha‐numeric code, but this as a rule will not be sufficient to distinguish a report from a conference paper, from a translation, a patent, or in some cases, even from journal articles. For this reason alone, the parameters of report literature will vary according to individual interpretations.