Sheffield World Metal Index: an account of its history and present state of development

An account of the practical steps involved in building up, maintaining and exploiting a specialized collection of trade literature, standards and specifications, data compilations, and related material to produce a user‐orientated service (World Metal Index WMI). The origin and scope of the collection is outlined, together with the basic routines of updating (management responsibility, job allocation, delegation and supervision). The problems involved in co‐ordinating input from manufacturers, government organizations, national standards bodies, material users and commercially published sources in many languages are covered. The organization of files, indexing rules, etc. is described. The ‘spin‐offs’ and by‐products of the WMI are indicated. An attempt is made to answer the questions: Is the collection a successful information tool? Does it benefit the user? Finally, possible future developments are mentioned.