SOME NOTES ON AMERICAN PRACTICE IN DOCUMENTATION

The newer conception of the library as a documentation centre involves the librarian in communication which in our time has become inseparably linked with reproduction. This is a field in which there have been technical advances, revolutionary in their potentialities but still largely unrealized owing partly to their novelty and partly to the absence of adequate synthesis. The American scene is strewn with a large number of excellent scientific aids to learning, ranging from microfilm to microprint and minicopy, from hand‐sorted McBee cards to elaborate I.B.M. punched cards combined with micro‐film, from offset lithography of the printed page to the brilliant achievement of the Science and Technology Project of the Library of Congress in their Technical Information Pilot, from the Rapid Selector to Ultrafax. To what extent are these inventions and devices being used in practice and how far are they modifying traditional methods of documentation?