Is the technical report an information tomb?

There is reason to believe that unclassified (security‐wise) technical reports are issuing from the Government’s defense‐related research and development program at a rate of the order of 25,000 distinct titles per year. These include the outputs of the Department of Defense, the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and their respective numerous contractors. This heterogeneous mass of separates originates from hundreds of different laboratories and exhibits little uniformity of format, periodicity, arrangement, or technical stature. That its contents include an appreciable fraction of today’s newest scientific information is generally recognized. Almost no reliable information has been available, however, on the extent to which the scientifically‐significant portion of this material is finding its way into the professional journals or other information media available to research scientists and teachers who do not happen to be affiliated in one way or another with government‐supported research.

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