The DOCUMENTATION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Before speaking on any subject it is wise and necessary to study the subject set, or the terms of reference given, in order that the speaker should not depart from what he has been assigned to do. In this connection I, too, thought it expedient to look at the title given to me as the subject on which I was invited to lecture. First of all there is that word ‘documentation’ much used in library circles. Now Dr. S. C. Bradford in his book Documentation defines the term as, and I quote, ‘the process of collecting and subject classifying all the records of new observations and making them available at need’, which doubtless summarizes in part the duties of a librarian. Now for the subdivision of the main subject— ‘Mechanical engineering’. A clear‐cut definition for this is not so easy. Let me quote some attempts which have been made. The Oxford English dictionary indicates that mechanical engineering is the contrivance or making of engines or of heavy machinery. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has defined the term as ‘the art and science of generating, transmitting and utilizing mechanical power; of the production of tools, machinery and their productions; including research, development, design, application, and the co‐ordination of materials, personnel and management’. (See Mechanical Engineering, November, 1941, p. 824.) Chambers's Technical dictionary defines it as ‘that branch of engineering concerned primarily with the design and production of all purely mechanical contrivances; including all types of prime movers, vehicles and general engineering products’. And yet another definition appears in A Dictionary of mechanical engineering terms, by Horner and Abbey, which describes the subject as ‘the art of construction of mechanism, generally comprising both prime movers and machines’. It is evident then that there is no clear‐cut definition of this subject as there is in similar branches of engineering, such as electrical and civil, etc. Perhaps the truest, or at any rate an all‐embracing, definition of mechanical engineering so far printed is that which appears in The Oxford junior encyclopadia, volume 8: Engineering. I quote, ‘mechanical engineering in fact is the basis on which all other forms of modern engineering depend fundamentally’.