D.S.I.R. AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION Available to Purchase

Within D.S.I.R., by a technical information service we do not mean a library or an abstracting service or a translating service. A technical information service may contain all or none of these. The essential thing about it is that it should be actively concerned with getting information in a suitable form to the user. Within this definition I should like to stress the word ‘actively’. We regard a service such as a library service which is only concerned with dealing with customers who approach it, as a passive service. To see if this has always been the view held in the Department I began to study the earlier papers relating to the Department. That, of course, is an appropriate activity because this year on 1st December the Department is forty years young.