SPECIAL LIBRARY INVESTIGATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82T00271R000100120003-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 202
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 23, 2009
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 16, 1957
• Content Type: MF

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1 6 ,Ji.1L 1957
M KELtOM 4 FOR: Deputy Director (intelligence)
SUBJECT : Special Library Investigation
1. In accordance with your request a representative of this
Staff has conducted a careful investigation of the OCR records
bearing on the so-called "Ten Horrible Cases" cited in the Library
Consultants Survey.
2. As a result of this investigation it is concluded that:
a. The pertinent OCR records have not been tampered.
with or altered in any tray;
b. The records substantiate the facts set forth by
the AD/CR in his memorandum to you of 1 July 1957 in
every significant respect but one.
3. The sole exception to the facts as set forth by the AD/CV.
relates to Case No. 9, where he states that "Obviously the card found
on the first search must have been drawn from Source 14-1102 which was
not used on the second." An actual machine run conducted at the rectuest
of the I.G. on this point produced the reference in question from Source
14-0000 rather than from Source 14-1102. The card produced in this
machine run was recently retyped as a result of damage to the original.
It seems probable that at the time of Run No. 302, the original earl was
in the so-called "damage file" awaiting retyping. During the course of
the search the machine room operator apparently failed to check this
"damage file" in accordance with standard NNachine Division practices.
Ac';ing Inspector General
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1]. July 1957
MEMORANDUM FORS Deputy Director, Intelligence
FROM : Assistant Director., CR
SUBJECT : Consultantst Report
lo In setting the date of 11 July for my final accounting on
the Consultants' report you have made it impossible for me to reply
to its countless criticisms effectively. Perhaps this is just as
well. It is easy to toss off criticism: and sloppy generalities.,
and it doesn a ?t take much time to do it, rat it takes a long while
and much painstaking work to answer the.. effectively. Most likely
the Ten Horrible Cases cited in the report were "discovered" and
written up in the space of a fe--T hours, though it took me the
better part of a week to examine them in detain., discuss each with
the people concerned, and finally to write nor memorandum of 1 July
which showed, beyond any possible dispute, that most of them were
untrue and misleading the product of inquiries so hasty and so
careless that they could only be described as irresponsible.
Probably it would take me many months to reply to all the other
criticisms in ti: -~ same way, and very likely it would not be worth
the effort. But since I must account to you for the whole report
by July 11th it becomes necessary for me to (a) speak in general
terms rather than specific, (b) discuss only the more important
recommendations, and (c) leave many questions unanswered.
Intellofac System
Intell.i,genre Periodicals .Index (IPS)
2. My memoranda of 18 June and 1 July have proved that most'
of the criticisms of the Intellofax system are thoroughly unsound,
and it is certain that we should reject the Consultants a most
important recommendation, i.e. that the Intellofax System should
be phased out as rapidly as possible and replaced by an expanded
Iplo
with. all its admitted imperfections, the Inteilofa e
System is doing a far bet ter job for us than any conventional
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published index could do,. To reassure myself on this score I made
a close scrutiny of the Bibliography of Agriculture (BoA) which is,
as all agree, one of the best published indexes in existence. This
study is appended hereto as Tab A, and it shows gzzi.te clearly the
kind of difficulties we would get ourselves into if we accepted the
Consultants' proposal.
An IPI big enough to index all incoming substantive intelli-
gence, as recommended by the Consultants? would be of immense bulls,.
Each monthly issue would be nearly as big as the Washington tele-
phone directory. Semiannual or annual cumulative issues would be 6
times or 12 times as big unless it were decided not, to repeat titles
in the cumulative issues but to provide only document or page numbers
which the analyst would have to search out one by one in the preced-
ing monthly issues,. To get the references to documents on a given
subject over a 5 -year span the analyst would have to work through
5 annual or 10 semiannual cumulations. Is it reasonable to suppose
that the man who complains about having to read several hundred
titles on an Intellofax tape would be willing to read or search out
the hundreds of titles listed under appropriate subject headings in
several volumes each as big as the fattest NIS?
The fact is that most of the defects which are found in the
Bibliography of Agriculture are unavoidable in any published biblio-
graphy. They cannot be eliminated even with unlimited budget and.
manpower,. That is why CIA set out to develop a mechanized system.,
and it is why spent so many years trying to develop a 25X1
mechanized Rapid Selector.
I cannot leave this subject without a speculation as to why
the Consultants attacked the Intellofax System so recklessly and 25X1
irresponsibly. The blind violence of this attack
emInded me of nothing so much as the American Medical Assoc 25X1
ciation charging off with loud hue and cry after some village bone-
setter, I really believe that_was infuriated to find that
others had succeeded where he himself had failed _ that while the 25X1
rapid selector he worked on for so many years is dead as the dodo*
a different anpr. oath to the same pr. oblerns has overcome the mechanical
difficulties and created a system which, however irnperfectly, is
.. ...............
a..~ A fact whicI_ ~imself refuses to admit, but which can be 25X1
confirmed by anyone who wishes to phone the Patent Office and
ask them what they are doing with it. Our phone call brought the
reply that if CIA was interested in it they would gladly let us
have it for about two dollars and fifty cents,
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able to carry an even bigger workload than that in the Depart-
meat of Agriculture. This fur,-y, I surmise, brought on so severe
an emotional disturbance that he became incapable of telling
black from white. I can think of nothing else which could
account for the way he shuffled perfectly simple and straight-
forward data in such a way as to produce false arguments in
support of his prejudice.
I recommend, in conclusion on these subjects, (a) that no
go ahead w tii tntello f ax and our planning for Minicard, doing
our best to correct such genuine deficiencies as we can find,
and (b) that we continue to exclude most types of information
reports and of 3nished intelligence from the IPl o
Intelligence Subject Code
30 The criticisms of the Intelligence Subject Cods are
genera'! ly sound,, and we are already taking steps to comply with
the recommendation on page ' that it be revised and made in-
ternally consistent. The devoted and competent staff which has
developed the ISC has gone too far in attempting to satisfy all
the specialists, each of whom wants to see his section of the
code expanded into great detail. The xSC has in truth become
too detailed for efficient and consistent use, and we must
whittle it down. Other agencies also are using it however, and
Air Force wants to expand the aeronautical segments of the code
into the most minute detail. We cannot prevent them from doing
this for their own purposes, even though we may think it a mss=
take,, but we can decide unilaterally to use only the first four
digits of that section of the code for our own purposes. Some
such solution as this will have to be found, and we are working
on it in a Working Group of the AHIP Committee.
No subject code is perfect. The Bibliography of Agri-
culture a s index is very imperfect even for agricultural subjects,
and as I have shown in Tab A it cannot be used without incono
sistencieso All the specialists criticise each other's classi-
f 3 cats en schemes , and no two agree. Hundreds of 'Qdocumentation
expertise hold dreary conferences almost every month to discuss
the general theory of indexing and classification, and they
seldom achieve ything more tangible than to point up the
importance of the problem',. They are like the Concord Trans-
cendentalists of whom it was said, They dive into the
illimitable, and they soar into the infinite, and they never
pay cashu72
G3a
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I recommend, with regard to the Intelligence Subject Code,
that we go ahem along the lines which I have outlined :bone
and on which *we have already started. This is in accord with
the recommendations of the Consultants, (Let us not forget,
however, that the course which we must steer lies between two
dangers: we must avoid the extremes of complexity which now
make the code so hard to use consistently,, but we must also
avoid extremes of simplification which would make it impossible
for us to pinpoint requests with a certain measure of selectivity.
The simpler the code the more numerous the titles falling in any
given subject category, and we do not wish to give the analyst
who is looking for a specific subject too many cards bearing on
related subjects.)
Map Library and Foreign Documents Division
lto It has been suggested many times before that the Map
Library and Foreign Documents Division be merged into OCR on
the ground that they are basically reference services, and in
1918 T was inclined to think this might be necessary in order
to lessen the jurisdictional disputes and overlaps. At this
time I can see no advantage in the suggestion at all, as there
no longer is any friction between the several units and extremely
little if any duplication of effort. It is certain that the
reference librarians should know of the existence of both FDD
and Map Library, and should remind their customers of the
services which they offer, and it will be a good thing to have
both of them located in the new building right beside OCR. Even
then, however, I doubt that much would be gained by rearranging
the chain of command.
1960.
I recommend that this recommendation be put on ice until
OCR Reorganization - Three Deputies?
5. If in 1960 it is decided that Map Library and/or FDD
are to be put under OCR, then it will be necessary to consider
a two-way or three-way split in the chain of command., but I
don't think much of the scheme proposed by the Consultants.
This has the fault that it would place the greater part of
OCRts present structure, plus maps and FDD, under a single
Deputy for Reference Services, while creating two other
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Deputies of equal rank but very much smaller responsibilities.
Also it groups together under "Administrative Services" four
functions which have no more in common with each other than
they have in common with the so-called "Technical Sex-rises"
under a different Deputy.
A two-way split would be better than this,, creating
perhaps a Deputy for Information Services who would have under
his charge the central Reference Staff,, the map and library
reading rooms, and the Registers; and setting up a second
Deputy for Technical Support who would have all the rest.
Thought might well be given at this point to the question of
whether Liaison Division shouldn't perhaps be transferred to
Contact Division. In a good many respects it now is function-
ally closer to Contact Division than to OCR.
I recommend that we move slowly on this proposal. Re.
organization or to sake of reorganization is always bad., creat-
ing more problems than it solves, and I believe we can work
effectively toward a central Reference Staff (see the following
paragraph) without having to toss all the rest of OCR in the
blanket.
Central. Reference Staff
6. The proposal that there be created a Central Reference
Staff has merit, though there is no. doubt that the Consultants
greatly exaggerate when they assert that for want of such a staff
there is now much confusion and duplication of effort. There is
no,.evidence to support such a contention, and it probably happens
very rarely that information which should be sought from one of the
Registers is., instead;, wrongfully sought from tha Intellofax system.*
The Consultants do claim that the Intellofax system is often wrongly
used for searches which might better be made in other ways, and they
cite some examples of this. I don't have time to scrutinize them in
detail, but it seems almost certain after a quick look-see that these
examples are as ill-considered and misleading as the others in connec-
tion with the Intellofax system which 1 have already reported on. It
is true that the system is sometimes used for what seem on the surface
to be unlikely purposes., but when this is done it is because all else
has failed, Andy sometimes to our considerable surprise., the last shot
try quite often does pay off. Documents which could not be identified
or located in any other way have sometimes been found by the Inte_llofax
system,, and,, despite one of the Consultants' examples., we did once find
a crew list in this way after all else had failed.
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6
The reference librarians do refer customers to the Registers and
to other sources of information when appropriate, and if they
use the Intellofax system for what seem like strange purposes it
is generally because all else has been tried and has failed to
give the desired data.
11,;e should do more than we have done in the way of train-
ing our reference librarians in the use of facilities outside the
Library,, and this can be done with or without reorganization. As
to putting individual people from the Registers into a central
Reference Staff,, however, -there is room for doubt: there are, in
fact, as good reasons against it as there are for it,
The experience of our Registers has always been that they
can best serve the customers, and do so with least waste motion,
when they talk directly with them. Each "channel" between the
Register's analyst and the customer leads to less perfect under-
standing of what is really wanted,, and this in turn causes waste
motion. Often, for example, Biographic Register finds that a
request from one of the Requirements Staffs of the other Offices
is reasonably lucid in most respects but needs to be clarified in
one or two. When this is the case it speaks, if possible, directly
with the customer; and almost invariably it is found that energy
would have been misspent and time wasted if the job had been
started without this additional clarification. Since the Register
is as near to every customer as is the telephone, it takes no
longer for the customer to say what he wants directly to the
Register than it would for him to say it to a middleman.
The Consul ants' proposal, of course, is based entirely
on the supposition that customers would get better and faster
service, at less cost to themselves, if the Registers maintained
"contact men" or "liaison officers" in the Central Reference Staff.
I think there is much doubt that this would really pay off for the
customers, and it certainly would not make the Registers themselves
more efficient.
I recommend that we commence building up the present
Reference Prane of""the Library, emphasizing its position much
as is suggested by the Consultants, and giving fairly intensive
training to its members; but that we refrain from any formal. re-
organization until we have had an experimental trial of the use-
fulness of putting Register liaison officers into the staff 0 As
a start, each Register might be required to place one person full-
time with the reference librarians for a week or so. Such person
would receive directly all requests which came to the Library for
services which his Register could handle. After a few weeks the
Reference Branch and the Registers should be called upon for
comment as to the usefulness of the venture.
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Hard CCo y versus Aperture Cards and Microfilm
7, We developed the aperture card system in order (1) to
conserve floorspace, (2) to conserve file cabinets, (3) to ensure
that our file would always be complete - i.e.., that we would
never find ourselves in the position of being unable to locate
or copy a particular document because of its having been borrowed
by an analyst or misfiled. These are good reasons, and they are
as sound today as they were when we first acted on them, The
Consultants doubtless speak in good faith when they say that some
of the analysts have expressed a desire to browse in hard copy
files, just as one browses in the book stacks of a university
library, but it was our experience while we had the hard copy
files that analysts seldom or never took advantage of this
opportunity. The reason is not far to seek, Browsing in file
cabinets where the documents of necessity are filed according
to source rather than by subject matter is not very rewarding,,
and it is very irksome. I am entirely certain that we would
lose far more than we would gain if we adapted the Consultantse
recommendations on this score.
I recommend that we reject the Consultantse proposals
with regard to a hard copy file,
Space Rearrangements
8, The Consultants' suggestions as to space arrangements in
the new building seem to me entirely sound, and you have already
approved rW recommendation that, we accept them for the present,,
subject to such changes as may become necessary before the time
of moving in 1960 or later.
The other suggestions as to rearrangement of the River-
side Stadium at the present time depend upon acceptance of the
recommendations for abandoning Intellofax,, going back to a con-
ventional published index,, and setting up hard copy files, All
these latter are thoroughly unsound and., in my view,, unacceptable.
It follows that we cannot and should not at the present time
attempt to shuffle our space arrangements in MoBuild:ng or the
Stadium.
I recommend that no change be made in our present space
arrangements, uat the plan for a Central Reference Staff in
the new building be retained, 1r +e can experiment with the Central
Reference Staff idea right here where we are,, and can subsequently
adapt the plans for the new building to accord with what we decide
we want.
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Libre collections
9. The Consultants are quite right in saying that we have
held down the purchase of books for reasons of econoIr r and be-
cause of space limitations. In the very early days of the Agency
it was decided that we should not attempt to build up a big
collection of our own, but should buy only (1) reference books
of the sort that should be available in the reading room, and (2)
other books in accordance with the stated needs of the research
and operating offices.
Professional librarians tend to measure each other's
prestige by the size of the collections which they administer.,
and all of them firmly believe that the librarian's first duty
Is to collect as many books as possible. This is understandable,
but not necessarily wise. Our policy has been applauded by the
Bureau of the Budget, and by all the many groups who have in-
vestigated us except the librarians. As a taxpayer I am in favor
of it myself,. and even in the new building I see no reason to depart
from it. It will not take appreciably longer to get books from the
Library of Congress to Langley than it does to get them to 26th Street.
I recommend that we go slow in "building up the collections"
even in the new building, Experience shows us from time to time that
we need more than we have in the way of basic documents on foreign
relations, and when this occurs it is feasible to embark on a program
of acquisition in specific fields. This was done in the case of the
Treaty Collection., and in the case of HIC. I believe this is a
better way to provide ourselves with the books which we need than
would be a broad effort to buy more books in all fields of interest
to intelligence.
Efficiency and Manpower in the Library
IID. The Consultants offer a number of criticisms of the Library's
efficiency as compared with the State Department Library., Yale
University., and other libraries. A good many of these criticisms
are unsoundg being based on faulty comparisons of the apples-versus-
oranges variety, and there is need to examine each in considerable
detail before a decision can be made as to whether manpower really
is being wastefully used and, if so, what we should do about ito We
have a copy of the memorandum from which the Consultants obtained
their information about the State Department, Library, and the writer
of the memorandum has expressed to us his own belief that the figures
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contained in it cannot be directly compared with ours- This is a
question which needs to be explored.
I recommend that the charges of inefficiency and wasteful
use of mai!power be placed before the Management Staff, with a request
that they be carefully analyzed and either proven or disprovene
Leadership and Aggressiveness
Um The Consultants' remarks on these scores are exactly analogous
to the remarks made about the Director of Central Intelligence by the
various committees which have investigated CIA since 1914.8. Without
any exception., I think, all of these groups have solemnly asserted
that the Director has the responsibility to coordinate the intelligence
community and sufficient legal authority to do it. He should get busy.,
and go out and do it. He ought to be more aggressive, and exercise
more leadership., and coordinate the other agencies with a stick if
necessary'
This is naive' The community cannot be coordinated against
its will., and any attempt to provide it with aggressive leadership by
CIA will be instantly and strongly resented. This is just as true in
the field of central, reference services as it is in every other. Much
can be done by friendly discussion and voluntary agreement, but very
little by fiat. Most of the other agencies have now voluntarily
adopted OCR's Intelligence Subject Code, but if we'd tried to ram it
down their throats we'd have generated nothing but antagonisms, rival
codes in competition with our own, and duplication of effort. OCR was
first in the field with a mechanized index system, and other agencies
are now moving in the same direction. The AHIP committee is doing a
good job of coordinating in nearly all aspects of information
processing, and its efforts should be encouraged and fostered,
I recommend that the Consultants' proposals for more aggres-
sive leadership in OCR be put back on the shelf. Use can accomplish
more by the behavior and methods now being used than we could by
trying to crack a whip, or by telling other people how much smarter
we are than they-
James M, Andrews
Attachment d Tab A
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Tab A
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AGRICULTURE (BoA)
The Bi raphy of Agriculture (BoA) is issued each month by the
Department of Agriculture0 It i.s an index to the current literature on
agriculture, it receives world--wide distribution in. 2.,000 copies,., and it
is by common consent one of the best recurrent bibliographies on any
given subjects It is of special importance to the present inquiry be-
cause it is the only really big indexs ..ng , job which has been produced by
any of our three Consultants, The first issue was put out by Ralph Shaw
in July, 19!i2, and he continued to supervise it until August of 1954.
Thus it represents the fruit of more than twelve, years of his best effort,
and we may fairly assume that it is as nearly perfect as he could make it
within the limits imposed by his, budgets Certainly it should be free from
most of the faults which he says he has found in the OCR systems_, and we
may therefore compare it with what we have in order to measure the extent
of our deficiencies. It is well that we have such a basis for comparison
at hand,, because a great many of the criticisms of OCR can neither be
proved nor disproved, Such phrases as "low intellectual contentt'q"in=
consistent input and output", 'slow, costly and undependable" deal with
qualitative factors and matters of opinion. We can a t answer them directly.,
but we can find out to what degree they also apply to a system developed
and perfected by one of our Consultants., and presumably approved by all of
them, For this purpose it will be worth while to examine the BoA in some
detail,
General Description of the BoA
The BoA is published in eleven monthly issues which appear at the ends
of January through November, plus a December issue which appears about the
first of the year and contains no new material but does index the past year's
output in much more detail than do the eleven regular issues.
In 1956 the regular issues averaged a little over 250 pages each, for a
total of 2,830, while the cumulated December index issue added another 652.
Total bulk for the year was about equivalent to three V.ashirsgton telephone
* I should like to emphasize that I have high respect, for the Bibllo aphy
of Agriculture and for the people who are producing Jt. My comments are
nei rT`ier as criticisms nor as return fire for the spitballs which
have been aimed at OCR, They are intended only to demonstrate that most of
the faults found in the OCR systems are also to be found in the best of other
systems, and that we therefore could not hope to eliminate them merely by
throwing away what we have achieved so far and going back to a conventional
system such as the BoAo
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directories,
Each regular issue listed an average of 80926 books., periodical
articles, and documents dealing with some phase of agriculture. The
total for the year was 98,1870 In the eleven regular issues the title
and description of each item are given only once, with a document number
which serves thereafter to identify it., The titles are arranged alpha-
betically by author under some 250 broad subject categories, and there
is an author index at the back of each volume which enables one to
locate the document numbers assigned to any given author.
The December index issue contains a much more detailed subject break-
down which gives for each category and sub-category the document numbers
for items belonging in each compartment of the scheme. To find the titles
and authors' names which match the document numbers it is necessary to
look them up in the eleven previous issues. There is also a cumulative
annual author index in the December issue?
Timeliness of the BoA
For the world of agricultural research the BoA is as admirable in its
timeliness as in its scope. By the standards which apply to intelligence.,
however., it would have to be rated as unacceptably behind the times. The
point is important, because it takes either a very big staff or else a
jue-:.cious combination of manpower and machines to achieve real speed in
handling most documentation problem.
The April 1957 issue of the BoA was received by the CIA Library on
3 May. Taking at random three pages of this issue (65, 127, 183) we
find that they all show about the same picture and may, therefore., be
regarded as fairly representative. The three pages show 122 entries,
and of these only 7 r had been published since the turn of the year. 99
are the titles of items which had appeared in 19569 and 16 date back to
1955. Over half of the items which show month as well as year of pub-
lication had appeared in December or November of 1956.,
The resear^her who receives a new issue of the BoA on his desk may
anticipate,, therefore, that fewer than one in ten items will be less than
four months old, about half will be between four and six months old, and
the remainder will be still older, This is rather good service, consider-
ing that many of the items are articles which were published abroad in
foreign languages and which doubtless spent a long time in the mails.
But the eleven regular issues of the BoA contain only the simplest sort
of subject breakdown, and the articles listed in the January issue do not
get indexed in any more detail until the following December.
By contrast,, of course, the Intellofax system does provide a full
subject and area indexing for all documents within a week or two after
they are received.
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Scope and C>snsi.stiency of the index ng (Regular issues of the BoA)
As noted above, the eleven regular issues of the BoA show each title
only once., arranged in the simplest form of subject breakdown, Th:.o break
down,, or classification scheme, is published complete in the first t io
pages of each issue, and this is, a great advantage to the researcher be-
cause it enables him to scan the entire pattern and estimate for hinself
just which brackets are most likely to contain the titles of interest to
him. So simple a scheme, however., has corresponding disadvantageso
To begin with, there is no area approach at all. The man who wishes
to find out what has been published on Russian agriculture will have to
read all the way through each issue - unless, of course, he is interested
only in certain aspects of Russian agriculture. To read -through 9,000
items in small print each month would be quite a chore, and it is doubtful
if anyone has ever done it except the unfortunate proofreaders.
Next, the necessary consequence of allocating a large number of titles
to a small number of pigeonholes is that many of the latter Gil'! contain a
burdensome number of entries. The January 1956 issue., for instance, shows
10,0602 titles arranged aiphabetical?y, by author within 260 subject cate-
gories. This would be an average of only LO entries per subject, but since
some categories contain only a very few entries it follows that the broader
and less selective ones must contain a good ==7W The mA:6:.mu.Zin; in this
issue, seems to be PLANT SCIENCE - PHYSIOLOGY, with 428. And since these
128 titles range the entire gamut of the plant world from bacteria to
orchids it follows that no specialist on any group of plants can afford
not to scan them through. The same is true of other large groupings in
the system, because the broader and less selective categories inevitably
do the most overlapping, The specialiot an algae., for example, cannot
find all the items dealing with his specialty merely by reading the 79
titles under the sub-'subcategory ALGAE, which comes under the broader
heading PLAINT SCIENCE .y SYSTEMATIC AND GEOGRAPHIC BOTANY. . If he
restricts himself to these 79 titles,, he will miss a large number of
others which are equally appropriate to his work but are scattered under
other headings. He will need to scan the !428 under PLANT SCIENCE w
PHYSIOLOGY because they include such articles as No 1142, Studies on
nitrogen-fixin blue- reen algae., which do not appear under ALG ie
will need to scan the 0 t~ `ttl.es under PLANT SCIENCE - 14ORPHOLOGY,
ANATOMY, AND CYTOLOGY because they include such entries as No 992,
Elektronenmi kroscopische untersuchun en uber f einstrukturen der
diatomeenschaleno And he cannot overlook the 7Ttitles under PLANT
SCIENCE - GENETICS because they include some which deal with the
genetics of algae, eogo No 107-, Multiple mutation in Chl.andomonas
r6inhardio
=sun, sun, it appears certain that exceedingly few agricultural research
workers will find that their specialties fit so neatly into the BoA index-
ing scheme that they can safely rely on a small segment of the index to
meet their needs c Most cai.ll have to scan a thousand or more titles each
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month in order to be reasonably sure of finding those which are of impor-
tance to their work, And, of course., a man who is trying to keep track of
all agricultural developments in a particular country will have to scan
the entire volume each month.
Consistency? Perfect consistency in indexing has never been achieved
by any system, and it certainly is not to be found in the BoA. The com-
pilers of the index are often much perplexed to know which of two pigeon-
holes to select for a given entry. For example, No 362, Four Marine Diatoms
under Electron Microscope. is one of the 79 entries under ALGAE, while a
German article on almost identically the same subject (No 992, cited above)
appears under MORPHOLOGY, ANATOMY, AND CYTOLOGY. In truth, if you were
doing the indexing for the BoA with this system., and if you found an
article with the title' Morphology of Algae, where would you put it? Under
ALGAE or under MORPHOLOGY? The rules forbid you to put it under both.,
because the rules were designed to produce a simple index which would not
be too bulky and too costly to produce. As soon as you allow multiple
entries., your bulk and your production costs go up. So we must expect
inconsistencies, and not complain about them. But it's no use to pre-
tend they don't exist.
The BoA title entries do have one virtue which has not already been
mentioned, If an article in a foreign language contains in its text an
English language summary, the indexers put the words "English Summary"
after the title. If there are joint authors whose names don't appear in
the printed title, the indexers put their names after the entries. If a
title is meaningless by itself, such as Victory when the article deals
with the success of an agricultural program., the indexers put a word or
two of explanation after the title. These little comments are of great
value to the man who is using the index., they seldom amount to more than
three or four words, and they need be provided only for every third or
fourth article. They are very useful indeed., and they cost little. Per-
haps, even., they could be cited as evidence that the BoA is an index with
"high intellectual content" though I think this would be overdoing it a
bit.
Scope and Consistency of the Indexing
(December cumulative issue)
Once a year., as has been said above the BoA puts out a special issue
which contains no new entries but does give a cumulative alphabetic list
of all the authors' names in the eleven other issues, plus a much more
detailed subject breakdown of the items in the regular issues.
The cumulated author listing is a useful and perfectly simple tool.
It enables the researcher to locate the articles published by a given
author in any year by searching through a single directory-type list
rather than through eleven. It does not, however., tell him what the
articles were. It gives him their document numbers, and he must look
these up in the other eleven issues in order to find out what the titles
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were. In the December 1956 issue, which runs to 652 pages, 352 are
devoted to the author index while 294 present the expanded subject
index.
The expanded subject index does not have any area breakdown but
it does give a much more detailed subject breakdown than the regular
monthly issues. In fact, the detail of its breakdown is without any
limits at all, as the name of any species of plant or insect may appear
in the index. Each document number is listed on the average in two or
three different places in the index, and some of them are listed in many
placF.s. One might think that this multiplicity of entries and unlimited
detail would provide an almost perfect index, but this,, unhappily, is not
quite true. The trouble is that this system creates (a) too many places
where a given article might reasonably be listed in the index, and also
(b) too many entries aster a good many of the subject headings. Incon-
sistency in the input - the building up of the index v cannot be avoided
since no two indexers will exactly agree on just where to put some of
their titles. Inconsistency in the output W the searching in the index
for specific titles on given subjects - is equally unavoidable because no
user of the BoA can be certain that he will think of the same places in
the index that the indexers did. This is a little difficult to explain.,
and since the point is important I shall deal with it by an example in
the following section of this report.
Weaknesses of the Conventional Indexing System
The only way to find out how well a system works is to try it out,
i?:-hat we want is to receive assurance that the BoA is capable of provid-
ing a fairly complete and consistent bibliography of articles published
in any given year on agricultural subjects. ?:e can see by inspection
of the annual index that it will supply a good many titles on almost
any agricultural subject we can think of, but we're entitled to ask how
complete these bibliographies will be. To be complete, of course, a
bibliography should include all titles which deal specifically with the
subject supposedly covered by the bibliography. If it omits titles
which are right on target then it is incomplete. To find out if the
BoA falls short of perfection in this regard we have only to see if
the index will locate for us a few specific titles on specific subject
matter.
Example 1
Imagine., for the purses of this example, that you are a reference
librarian in the Department of Agriculture, and that a senior researcher
comes to the Library and says., ?'NLiss Jones, I wonder if you can help me,,
I took some notes last week on a rather important article which reported
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8 ~EGL' ~R~E T
6
that a certain kind of grass had recently been found harmful to horses.
I've mislaid the notes, and I can't remember the title or author of the
article. Is there any way you could find it for me. I'm quite sure
it was published in 19560"
The following are the steps which you take:
(a) You assume that the article-was published early enough in
1956 to have gotten into the 1956 index., There's only about a 50%
chance that this will be true: if it was published in the second half
of the year it is quite likely that it didn't get picked up until one
of the early 1957 issues of the BoA. For the purposes of this search,
however, you will start with the big annual index published in
December,, 1956. There won't be any detailed index to the 1957 issues
until next December, so if you can't find what you are looking for in
the 1956 set of the BoA you will have to start reading through the
1957 issues page by page.
(b) Turning to the December 1956 annual index., you start logically
enough with the category HORSES. Here you find three columns of fine
print, listing 508 document numbers. These numbers mean nothing to
you by themselves, but you can find out the titles and authors of each
if you look them up in the other eleven volumes of the 1956 series.
However, the index is broken up into quite fine detail under HORSES
and most of the subcategories don't look very promising., so you don't
have to run down all 508 titles in the other volumes. You do, however.,
have to look up those which are shown in the subcategories which look
most promising. You start with the 20 numbers listed after HORSES
POISONING, and find that 19 of the 20 quite clearly refer to horses
being poisoned by substances or plants other than grass. One entry,
No 875379 mentions only "plants" poisonous to horses, so you copy down
the title and call number on a slip of paper and ask the Librarian to
lend you the article. Upon reading it, however., you find that there
is no mention of grass.
After this, you turn to the other subcategories under HORSES
which look promising and run them down by the same method and with
similar results. 'When you get done you find that you have run down
83 titles as shown in the following table, and you have had to get
five or six documents out of the Library without result:
HORSES:
Poisoning0.000000000o00ou0 20 items
Mortality0m..09o.......v.. 1
Feeding and nutrition..... 24
Care0000000000000000000000 6
Digestiono000o0.0...0.0000 3
Diseases0 0 0 0 .0000000000000 18
Abnormalities0000000000000 5
Anatomy and physiology.... 6
63
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(c) You have now spent the better part of the morning on this
quest., and you go back to the researcher to see if he can't remember
anything more about the article. Under pressure., he says he is
absolutely sure (1) that the article was in the 1956 and not the
1957 issues of the BoA, and (2) that its title did specifically
mention both "horses" and "grass". Encouraged., you go back to the
annual index and look up GRASSES. Here you. find 386 document numbers.,
but there is no sub-category for POISONOUS and only a few of the others
look at all promising. You run down perhaps 20 or 30 of them in the
monthly issues of the Bibliography and draw a blank.
Next you look at PLANTS, and find that it contains over 2,000
document numbers but no subcategory for POISONOUS or anything like
that. Looking to see if there might be amajor entry in the index for
POISONING, you find to your surprise that there is a major entry for
POISONOUS PLANTS, and under it a sub-category TO LIVESTOCK with 28
document numbers. You look up the 28 titles and find that none con-
twins the words "grass" and "horse". A footnote to the POISONOUS
PLAITS category now catches your eye, and you read "SEE ALSG NAMES
OF POISONOUS PLANTS"-. This is rough? There are over 7,000 species
of grass in the vorld, and if the article you are looking for gave the
botanical name for the grass in question then very probably it was
indexed under that name. To look up 7 ,,000 botanical names the
index, to see if one of theca nii,ght produce the document we want, is
just not feasible. It is true that not all of them will appear in
the index T only those that were mentioned in the literature during
1956 (and not all of them., by any means) - but the only way to find
out which ones are there is to look them up one by one. It would
almost be easier to read through the 2P830 pages of the I3oA that were
published during the year. This line of thought leads to the next
step:
(d) Instead of reading through all. 29830 pages., why not just
read those sections of each monthly volume in which an article on
harmful effects produced by grass on horses would probably be listed?
In this case we are lucky enough to know that the title actually
contains the word 'grass" and "horse" or "horses". How many titles
would you have to read to be sure of finding the one you want? The
category VEEDS AND POISONOUS PLANTS contains 1,050 titles in 1956.
If that doesn't work, you can try FORAGE AND GRASSES with 1,232
titles. And if that also fails., the only other category that seems
at all likely is HORSES AIM MULES - VETERINARY 2i EDICnE, with 604
titles to be read. It takes a good marry hours, but you now read
through all these titles and again draw a total blank.
(e) You now have to admit you're licked, and you call up the
researcher and tell him so. He replies, "Oh, I meant to -tell you.
I found my notes the other day just after I I d talked to you. I
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hope you haven?t been to too much trouble". Rather weakly you ask
him what the title was, and learn that it was Stomat.tis of cattle
and horses due to yellow bristle rass (Setaria lutescens , No ~702IL
IF the bibliography. You look it up and ind that it was listed in
the November issue under CATTLE - VETERINARY NEDICINE, and that its
number appears in the Annual. Index under STONIATITIS and SETARIA
LUTESCENS
Examples
Lest anyone suspect that the example cited at such length above
is a carefully selected one., and one which would seldom occur in
practice., I give below the descriptions of nine other titles in the
1956 Bibliography and suggest that the skeptic attempt to find theme
Anyone who can find any one of them in less than a day ? a time will
be doing well., and I will buy a drink for anyone who can find all
nine in less than a month. Those who abandon the search may have the
elusive titles by sending me one dollar with a self-addressed envelope.
Ex 2 An article discussing the comparative value of four
different types of grass as pasture for milk cows.
(The entry contains the digit sequence 39:574-588, which
may serve as positive identification when the right article
is found.)
Ex 3 An article with the title Cool seasai razin and feed
2 crops0 (The entry contains the sequence Ex 0. lpo)
Ex 11 A popular account of wild flowers and flowering plants
in the Arctic. (The entry contains the sequence
191.(2):88-92.)
Ex 5 An article which describes preliminary studies on the
influence of environment on fungus growths in potato
plants. (The entry contains the sequence }.:265-270.)
Ex 6 An article which discusses the probable correlation
between increasing salinity and the disappearance of
gnats from Moriches Bay. (Contains the sequence 23:90910 )
Ex 7 An article reports that a species of diatom never
before found in North America had now been reported
from there. (Contains the sequence 83:89--95?)
Ex. 8 A book which reports the findings of a. 1953 survey
Thailand. (Contains the sequence 269 Po)
S-E-CC 4k-'E'T
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SEC -R-E-Ir
Ex 9 An article which discusses growth rates in plants
and has the title: Promotion and inhibition: twin
themes of physiology. (Contains the sequence 90: =1 20)
Esc 10 An article which discusses the effects of environment
on bacterial diseases in poultry raised for the table.
(Contains the sequence 7:445-460.)
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THOUGHTS ON TAE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AGRICULTURE VS. INTELLOFAX SYSTEM
I. VOLUME
Bibliography of Agriculture - 100,000 items, or less, a year
250,000 subject references a year
Intellofax system - 300,000 documents a year
1,000,000 cards a year
II. APPROACH
Bibliography of Agriculture - a classed index; each item
(book or periodical article) appears once; approach by specific
subject must be delayed until the annual volume, which is the
only one containing a subject index. The solution to this is
to read the section dealing with one's specialty every month.
This can apply only to subjects, not areas. A person interested
in plants poisonous to domestic animals would have to read
at PLANT SCIENCE
Weeds and Poisonous Plants (items 85157_85257)* 101
b. ANIMAL INDUSTRY
HORSES
Veterinary Medicine (items 87426-87474)*
CATTLE
Veterinary Medicine (items 87016-87258)*
and so on. Furthermore, if he were interested only in plants
poisonous to horses, it would still be necessary to read the
L.
section under CATTLE, since an item which dealt with both cattle
and horses (e.g., 87024) might appear under CATTLE.
* Items cited are from October 1956 issue.
Intellofax system - a subject index as well as a classed
index; this means that material can be found by specific subject
within days after the document is received in CIA. For instance,
for poisonous plants we would run code 632.314; it would then be
necessary to screen out reference to plants poisonous to humans.
CIA INTERNAL USE ONLY
f
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III. RETRIEVAL
Bibliography of Agriculture - no approach area wise
Intellofax system - approach by area possible; very important
to CIA
Bibliography of Agriculture - to retrieve everything on a
given subject it is necessary for a person to find the subject and
all its breakdowns, (e.g., Diptera, mosquitoes, Culicini, Aides
(plus all species), insecticides - mosquito control, malaria -
transmission, etc.. etc.,) copy off lists of numbers, and then
somehow reproduce at least part of the citations. These could
run to literally hundreds of items.
Intellofax system - definitive codes, to cover the desired
subject, are chosen by the analyst in consultation with the
reference librarian. Machines, thereupon, locate the appropriate
references and reproduce them. If there are many references, an
initial screening can be done by the librarian.
The intellofax system is cumulative; the Bibliography is not,
and so far as I know, cannot be. To cover six years in the
Bibliography of Agriculture would require a manual search through
six volumes of indexes. A machine run can cover six months, or
six years.
The Bibliography does index very specifically, once a year;
however, it covers a limited subject field, as compared with the
Intellofax system. If the Intellofax system were converted to a
Bibliography of Agriculture-type publication, each year's volumes
would occupy four times as much space as does the Bibliography,
or two feet of shelf space. This would pose a real storage problem,
since our publication would be classified. Furthermore, if we
tried to have four different publications, divided by subjects or
by areas, we would be faced with the problem of overlapping items,
and would then have to give everyone all volumes, or else do
multiple indexing. All volumes for all years would have to be
retained, at least for some time.
CIA INTERNAL USE ONLY
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CIA INTERNAL USE ONLY
The Bibliography of Agriculture is selective; older material
is not indexed, and there are other types of material which are
not included. It is printed in 2,000 copies, of which 864 are
distributed free in this country, and 495 in foreign countries;
606 copies are sold by the GPO. The Library of the Department
of Agriculture does not have statistics on the number of copies
disseminated to the Department's research offices.
STAT
Chief, Reference Branch
.6U j3S`I
Lm -Sr
U ; NTERNAL. USE ONLY
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2 Jul-I 1957
4a'.M0 /I NDUM Pi)1` i L Jilt~r ,'i1'~yct, lr, Ccin ?ral Tr t1ca._ i ence
VI Deputy .:1.r.:~e ~az?, I.;te1..i~,e;.ic
FROM I;r 5-. t rt `'irvictor, Central cfcrcrhice
'a F.a~,vent ation !,-y the
rUDTT 'Ci ?Pcc~uc:;:t :
Ind-,.Iector i.ee:.era1
PhFY,R i , iCx; .ttacht'd uleao, AD/'41,f, to DD/I, 1 Jul;; 195?
This eonta'i':;:6 's re-quest for your F?p roov :t1 in J+ ?"6 aTI'tSs Z1
r s
1. - Tt:u: Ofd~"cc of contra "e c:r~;rlc.: ~,:-~s ;~r.rt1r? ,, ?r~,rv(--,yc,6, tAza..s year
bar a panel, of three arot"es ion 1 libr r? enc Xi", ;m we hired &E
In ti::ei.r report ct:nten l85 n:ey 1957 they, made certr.1n sta t,5o. ,: is w1ich;. I
beve found to be untrue or mi~ile-adir, . The Oetr-lile, &'.re get, forth. in the
s.cco: pariyingr copy of me;uorei.ndura to the Pr;/I.
)c1,"t t?.il,'I;,, F:.C.1 ?` +,1-,e- fe.-Ot that I have
'r The Ct:.i?{27'ep Ll.Gi':lti.''. c.'.re i ..--
chare.ed the Consultants with laving mrele;s-~.y i:7read. and iic.intez*
nz^eted the of '.ice records is not likely to rem, -.in C-. closely held
secret. Almost - urely the suspicion will. &rise, uth tln r or not it
ii openly espreeoed, that OC1 may 1mve tampered with the recordu.
1. In the Agency's intereUt,, as well as try own, I eu:c that. the
InDpector General be instructed to meks a for e2 inve;:tw,::t.tion of this
point without delay. It will not be cifi?icu1t. The Ogee; It .al records
are e. eeri.ec of Request Fords which are kept in pvrdll.el, one set by
M,achinna Tlivisiou c-r ore :;.et by the CI,. Library. They nre not ident?ice:.1,
rrc they serve slightly different purposes, but they &:re suabstantia.i1y
in i, ;raomtnt on the points. in issue. It will be easy for the Inspector
General's etxe f ' to ascertain whether or not they have been t>~ ^ered
Wi th .
c c: D.P/I
IG
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1 July 1957
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director, Intelligence
FROM : Assistant Director, CR
SUBJECT : The Ten Horrible Cases of the Library
Consultants
1. No aspect of the survey by the Library Consultants has caused
me so great concern as the Ten Horrible Cases which they cite on pages
72-75 of their report in order to "point up some of the intellectual
and mechanical problems of the Intellofax system." These ten cases
are the foundation upon which the Consultants base their major recom-
mendation, i.e., that CIA should abandon its attempt to develop a
mechanized indexing system and should, instead, go back to a conven-
tional index to be published monthly. These cases make very painful
reading for anyone in OCR. Taken together, they are a devastating
indictment. We dare not hope that any system which we can devise will
be entirely free from the failures caused by human errors, but we
certainly did not suppose that our failures were so serious and so
frequent as the Ten Horrible Cases seem to prove.
2. Now hear me! These are not Ten Horrible Cases at all. I
have looked at them far more carefully than did the Consultants, and
I find as follows:
Two of them, Numbers 1 and 3, occurred exactly as the Con-
sultants say they did, and they are bad. In both cases human errors
caused the machine room to miss some cards which should have been
supplied to the customers - OTR last August, and ORR this March.
There is no excuse for either of these two mistakes. We have installed
additional control procedures which we believe will lessen the chance
of a recurrence, and we hope it will never happen again, but we obviously
can't promise that it won't.
Two others are of similar nature, and they are correctly de-
scribed by the Consultants except for one significant omission: they
fail to note that both these mistakes were caught and corrected within
OCR itself. Case Number 2 was caught by the Special Register, and Number
4 by the Library. The customers for whom OCR was doing the work - ORR
in one case and Army in the other - did not suffer by these mistakes
and, indeed, never knew they occurred.
The Six other Horrible Cases are phonies. They are bogus, and
they reflect no discredit on our system. They do show clearly that the
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Consultants handled at least this part of their survey in a manner so
unbelievably careless that it can only be described as irresponsible.
Thus:
Case No 5, page 74. The Consultants say: "On 30 January 1956
(sic) run #129, which is a rerun of 116, produced 124 references instead
of 54 but there were 193 references entered as being in the class searched
as of 31 January 1957 (sic)."
It is the Consultants who are wrong on this one, and in addition
they have garbled the facts.
Item: It was #116, not #129, which produced the 124 cards.
Item: It was #129, not #116 which produced the 193 cards from
which 54 were selected as being useful for the requester's purpose.
Item: The two runs did not call for the same subject codes, and
therefore cannot be compared on any basis. Both were for the same requester,
TSS, and both covered the same areas, but #116 called for subject code 877
standing for NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS while #129 called for code 850.1,
standing for PHYSICAL FITNESS. It is not remarkable that the two searches
did not find the same cards. There would have been something seriously
wrong with the system if they did.
Case No 6, page 75. The Consultants say: "On 11 January 1957,
run #35, which is a rerun of #32, produced no references, whereas run #32
had produced 130 with fewer codes. All the run #32 codes were repeated
in run #35."
Again it is the Consultants who are wrong, and in this case they
have twisted the truth by exactly 180 degrees:
Item: It was the first run, #32, which produced no cards.
Item: It was the second run, #35, with three additional subject
codes which produced 130 references.
This is exactly as it should be. With Intellofax as with any
other indexing system, conventional or mechanized, if you don't find
what you're looking for under one heading you try another. In this
case the first run, using only two subject codes, drew a blank. So a
second run was made using the additional codes, and it produced results.
Case No 7, page 75. The Consultants say: "Run #490 on
8 April 1957 repeated run #480 including all the old codes of the
earlier search and some additional codes, yet run #480 gave 80 refer-
ences and #490 gave only 22."
Once again it is the Consultants who are wrong, and again
they have carelessly made a hash of the facts:
Item: It was the first run, #480, which produced only 22
cards.
Item: It was the second run, #490, which produced 80
references.
Item: The second run was in no sense a repeat of the
first, and therefore it should not have produced the same cards.
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Both were for the same requester, both were on the same area and the
same subject, but they covered different periods of time. The first
run asked only for data from 1 January 1955 to date. This produced
only 22 cards, so the requester asked that another run be made on the
same codes for the years 1951 through 1954, plus one additional subject
code for the period 1951 to date. This produced 80 cards.
Case No 8, page 75. The Consultants say: "Run #438 of
21 March 1957 was another rerun including all the old codes plus new
ones. The rerun gave no references while the original gave 45."
Wrong again.
Item: The earlier run, #402, drew a blank.
Item: The second run, #438, produced 45 references.
Item: The two runs cannot be compared in any way, though it
is true they were both on the same subject and for the same customer,
OTR. The first asked for basic and finished intelligence onl on the
economic development of the Asiatic RSFSR since 1 January 1955-
references were found, which is scarcely surprising, so a second re-
quest was placed but this time without limitations as to type of
intelligence. This produced 45 references to intelligence reports
not falling in the basic and finished category.
Case No 2, page 75. The Consultants say: "Run #302 of
20 February 1957 which gave all the codes of run #245 plus others,
gave no references while run #245 did produce one."
The statement is true as it stands, but it is incomplete and
misleading. The first run, which produced a single reference, asked
that two different sources be searched, 14-0000 and 14-1102, while
the second specified that
search 14-0000 mt hwas aveobeensdrawnefxom scarcely
the card found on the first
14-1102, which was not used on the second.
Case No 10, page 75. The Consultants say: "Run 293 was a
rerun of run #284. The rerun used fewer subject codes but reversed
area codes and obtained 179 references instead of the original out-
put of only 16 references from more codes."
Wrong again.
Item: The earlier run, #284, produced 179 cards.
Item: The second run, #293, with fewer codes, produced 166
cards.
Item: In view of the changed area codes we should not expect
the two searches to produce identical results in any case.
3. The Consultants conclude this section of their report with the
mathey chine esystemsuffi-
statement that "these l of d the but
t to cast serious doubt on the reliab
cient as
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currently operated." I agree with the first part of this statement.
Doubtless the Consultants could easily have multiplied these cases,
but to have done so would have cast less doubt on the reliability of
the Intellofax system than on the competence of the investigators.
STAT
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18 Junin 191.7
,..E..i..MJT.hi. ,DU.~ FOP.: v.x r,c~ , . :-? irr.atc~ -"..c~'t..?i.~;t..~, ,,
`r,i+t~,..s~.r, r. ~ec
v1
FROM : t, ist , t " ,rector, 0R
'Uj ' 0^ : Tlh.e:. ling ::.no us gr.. of obi IzSte!.iofr%x cards
t~r-ci irFi.c .rds
P&.,'es Viii
~s.~`~1~L~!,.FC~.; a,.e-r-F;srt a_ t,l:E~ iFl .,,,:,,,t,, Gor.s?a.1.tz. ,.,~, y
I X0 66-67, cad 117
Eepor. t states a .r+ a t. ' lq 1. G t'hx ~v ,? " F f nr: non, on --pp viii and
"Retire aft::,t of IBM ors 1i s.!itLt the usfi 'uinesss
oft }a 1 ntello 'a:r ysten: to five c.r F.i y ere of
recent materie.1e,
nTh xsesr-o- v'ci 1 bilit~; o 'the olc er 1ntE:1ioThx
c,.,r It at th e toted invest 7mFnt in Intellofax
Output ir, one after fiv,u. to sir yesrs, ~,.rldl there is
no us>, r'l a way, to get at older materials."
L : Th?".' aattatfft4'1ento ctre correc i. Usefulness w ~":C~ 4~4"i"a~if?ni i
riot 1imitod to five or six years, the1 oldcsr erre;;7 are. not z 'ilon-{avU3abi.ti'".
:~ t there e;. u:Oab1,? way to = e t ~..t the older ;n.~terials.
At 8ez 7; which I nE i c t d that the old in*;.s;'s.lof cfcrd with
these codex. wore on Reel numtor co-e.ns3-so. T?ho reel vas emplaced in a
nicroft3uJ rea(tcr for :ne, I wa,? tev(!,ht how to tI,.. reader, rmd by
9:05 1 had photos of ? ~.,;: cards in per-y ectly order rrrri legible
condition before -'re.
2. -T`hr rr?port states on p&,,,.,,o 67:
'r~ 11of~ x ter_4, 1~5?
"The c rd s for ?~i:g; olde' In
been .:ent to 1 ; tortt ;~e, T.?hera. it 7..k? r. Oporto I t:r',ey
have become unu: f,'ible.iF
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3 fd'o d Z i 3 1t.L' :i n r ? ;o
rasponeibl j%Y'F.Bt1S.O-.Gr Cite :iecrw+ J~3"' CP. r
p $t, tKwY. 'tt vr VC; .. .a.o ~..;; 'c ' cy . r,-.. E
#~
or dia rover F.o thia". of -1:,}: o Wh.?(r cnrta." ware st,)rt?3':'> (f:- t.a"'i:?L1li+~? .
1Ti.~nj~. 3:i"'i"G't~:?iit'!'t:'?` .,f?;a:`.) ;,~:V:'?1>12.i;. 1c. ),00 }. .F. F ,..~.. .~,.. ;: ~? r
> Of
. fFt.'.j.nZ?f0T%c On ~'t the
:rese:i v tivv. 11,ei'1' C:U af' tior is e:ntia o1"
at a'e:.b A.
1Er. rs ::~': ~? . u ~ ':a w ~' ~.f E1 TI +~~'C 67,
in. +h* Circulation
f.tis,t~. t ca f.3.lm, as well Xs: .ri'tk; th
cou14 theore,,tic,iiiy c:'il th.,f: car lrx b c1r from storrae,E::,
Shows tt~rl't'? the; film -n+',ver been Ct7n 1.'t nor ~'::?'EIS the
cnrdds ever been brought beak fro?, torn', e.SY
fienly. It i,'. ften. Ve'ry ,c;1eom, in feat.
often as -nee c. month." When I ;.r,;;ssed !-,-sr es to v%etb..er it hcc ever
y
4'('i n wsed he akAO yes, Li{1C:1t C!! eiilu7 t. 4, ..'.v arr-.l ;1:onthn go there
were several de;:,.&..cds upon it all a'u once.
I confers : I i onet. quite i;h";'.t to n?~.'Ke of this. 5le'rh'.pti
t ho deS;?Fn S that ehe reme+'i+:%er t were geTt;^.7 7 V,.~``: ! 'r C
`te?~~fr. ''.s ~. C: Jo.Z sii.. tl.,Vi,t#?'! but
ice 't,+.:?et, ca F Et> Gon u .':~,.. is w:3uld h. ve no excuse :ror me.xin;.
?-enI u referred to in ?urrxcrrF,:1~`: 1 :~.'r~ave. The 1 lji'~l`Z,: nt r':,cts, it ece;nw
to iere (1) that the fi.1it i:; in ?,o,;;:' nondition c,!-'.id reAWil'' av i.l~;:r:ie,
T,Arr t I'.!
And (2') t at it it i'zeld!. it 1. Ci'~..~.:d for.
4. Fur tier, or -..ace 67;
'V ne.1"vt e 'who think th ay ^ re o ettt :': 'vii .-,tt,.ribi:l, more
than five 'ir nix ye-ors old from t'';3s, 7.y.te- &r'e t'u`r.+ti'1g
n 1:9oiilt't1'tin;' t?,vt :'''.oea not., in f,,Ct het'.::pen."
P-eDly: Tenrlentioue. Pe,rti n t~ v
,f? On ~2.i,# tK- ~,QYlli:t,~ ,:1 .,i= ltwi~aCri 7::1 i1 ,1f 119 t },. . t,'?.~ :CY~i ...~-Z ti T4-
n th-o Intellofax Oyster, by one raunrirec r'unr: a,,mo1r:t d in
.~t e#oi:.. in 1. Kty 'tint,. fir~t? i~ar~:. e. e 1
..N ~:rzc; -me; j >,1ur~~;irt , "In r:F]Gt3. e~e,~t, aec?
ti-at had suF.1Aci. E:ft' ? cr ata to xie! useful urre'.i c:~'~.ri.^^.? at1Gri 1e2?Ea F'bC;it
360 runs i'n "+!Lu.'e two ' wrt.h6, thin ever uu E,&& 1 r)lcl v:t bout 4O5 of the
'C h-, f '
'~,
tflv ~
20 t" { t:
j a,l. V n e~, Stu:'i.i o d these to k?Iv'+t; '+;,1 ,
th;;: . Y ;'it",em. to sevrc:. 31-'or, and on 67 t;Jt y out of
21,03 t e- four d that:
44-%% It .?U!l v c?ry in Fis`ts`. stir,,- to n'3tc t t J/;.1,4% Of
e.". for .w"'-!ter3s,1 -,,r)'!a t. ~tn 1337" -~n-m"rr,
ast
f'4n1. t t, misint -er sretation of t}'tt~ i a't'a.
h v Ctt fC sa k^.11 'C>':F' re?+yLt4 ` ?'C`i'r f'`c r t! :t ^~lyri.i~'.f, n'b }ti;r!T1f
nxe 23 G(-i> } ask for d t ? from 1tit~r:~O to :ate , i': o ' l.1117'h7E) rer `? tif{
3.I it no nrif CO:ilr ~f2,tXl o re, `; C 1A33i t;.lr1do, nl,",Y:`u Ifer]:Cot'FA.v
rccoi'd keening".
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- 4 -
S tii ~.. ?.l.~:f;
b.i vbe refE,rclic? ii.(rar.ir n wiia, as noted, in had
to 'aet? t.i't6) wor41 in
9oweYUr~ at a f' 7 ty iR: O Stw t+-,t, fOT-li.:.' ,..':Vu t:':Q; entry
I'A11 or "All ates" 1,:'; +,,.i-,F l:~r-.Ctlw ,;l?f>Lt( J`OVt'.N^r!? l'1,; t3lus 1:52
t~lY:irh i 42r; tai' 3,
t+t7t?vic:it;;i.`i.
r qu(ii~t:: for yp-arn or a??:~rC [C?.lt:~f,3 dc.G-?i$'
This i, t~3 sr;.)l ia3.:a9 ~atarsr;ara~t i.tiun, v .i.c'r: it. ".3 ;t..1, te,y &'r:bri.fi .bie
to regerd r--.s unintentional. In trux.toh, 1?i(a'-7e;VAr, tt; o for : ref..i - ct, onl. - the
Instructions g iveen to ti,(,? ?.?. s.ch.tn#:? `1?'yt'1~ ,'",:, r~".er ' 1': G. ^'.'C't:i~. ?, pi' ..? ox & e'
~ x
to :Tearc : for "e17. ? t; s'f it iL; trv.1arstrioc? by or. iil1 tlht t< t'i.Ie! re-for.is
to la11 ?"_ ate now e;overc){'; !,; th c rc f wit;gan. ' '-,.r rl:uorn ;ton's not
nave ciisttaJ of t'c r.dcrofiim. "i142,: t,~~sac? ; ,elr .hr~.r bcera '""all f~; ae;
(barrinz nie.~to?_ae) ?t.1i,i.t h1 try ne run will not covor d te.%i than
J nuax?cr 1`Q5l; ten;' there i,h, ;'rinteG. ~TxoimcEi.:SksC',t to tl:e w~;>l effect on
ti?1a:: Fr,'C,e it
se . Ta i".4 33E3.'i::ts to bJeo re CD$`4?ac -:oing 'back before that
dF)te hP. '~_?old `.'h t. hth!: ir. craf iIm :~i?'.S yeada y e:v I. 1?t~ ti t. 'it Even if
We f?.Can1it Ei !ss 1 ] tt:.} e ;J!C77?i: ? x"1 :i0? E, },:{.t ^\"c" to re se '.ii cro 1`?i i
o GoCCliv t; rrin #' 3 list in 'trryur hn',ni y 'wC; wouie3 nonet elevs suppose
that if 41,1,M of the reriiiestnx', u.re~iIly '.'?entG tl7 Ulti't dot: i4 ;7000 119.ny of
the 11ou3id te;v . tht7, tr> +,i1:+'i, to loot: &t. th '.f'i 1; ? ""~ C-on vu.1tv.n.4s them--
selves report tt'9'i't; TYont. ev r go to tr:)k .h ::, &nc our
o nin beet judg-71nnt tr.s that eXco'eiiin-:']7r ae-,f do ?!o.
C13I Y1ZN '.~' ~^LUAI"?-1;1 i' !' 3t~: Ls
a ,? 3!;C~ T
6. ' 't'ip:' evi'-,e 2c e Leelod to .2e irre utoblr-~ tl-,.'.t vori fcw rf.)tYt,t':irel..(:rc
f ,} .,~, 1:5 t:(~ ~yi..'~'-'1" ?F' ~. y ^~ . to look
~ ~1"~:,{, 4, ~.~'{x ~1v'~5.r ' Sa ' :~.L. C~. `.'. ~.. t p 4.;.~"_ .. ~ U.'.?.L~~
hf7ve i)u.A. ?~
loo. r
at the 'i.lm, ?'t1:li we re Llf ! :i tt.r ~.t;
culling out the ool_e_,ez' cards in .4 to ;O.rti?'... !;.'r;oe 7'.'?77 ?l.a:FY. :e i5'&
1F~GIt i fied,a 1 r ` t. .1n." i'rrovi i ed3 :l." "nTa:!'.1'iec , r.;n.d ~ K
t tt? tl:e o r"or cnrds are
x`f;! nt 23 i; 7 i e E1 tlil;' ,a. E+?r,t;?l y to is i.'t few w' tie
trol?t+le. The *3!t9 xu ?+ ,o;r r:z~e at,t .r" the rresent. ;I s~te:tt - inaof`o.r
e ;..t is humanly _a s l i( '(,:s d4o o.. I ?;eiievf ever if rte put or
=w rn1nr.:; or the ;)uxhl.ic.. cid.re; o System.. and if vc -Vef'utor-.f. ~0 'eliver .z'_
1)'1te7loiax run to any lr rta].yot until be : ;1 tiSf2;' k`ri t.f .1-0avi t 'I:,i.'.:?tt. 1-tad
heard. and u i err t"ooct t:lhtr werniiirl, t>f.' o 1( .,t1.il be t).cells:'d by L's few of
t;. 4vi n ; % liu? ly outraged. 'tt'hc^ut.
Ae coMp4red wia:1^CL1i:v-ent:ton#''1 if,.(.)SX31'( 2 rs?t;C? tt '1tCF r%. t, t;l.~?.
fe.w ..,z'k Til;;e.i Index, t1he 1 lio,- r phy of .grl e'lftt'ire, or t:LY' Intel l1--
',~E>nc Pul:].ic t.i oxi 121Ctex, t;:l: a _Tnt(Il ofs`t.:; r? 'n t& it i;;bys i,'Iltn C3vt' "t$.Etges SJiiE)I1
it, ~t;J'!t'F(3 ?;t3 .~f.}.s,;:.~.]..Si{:,~ 'S?iJ.''':ii .~. ?t;?. ?:Y' ..'^F~? 'k;?iE::`.. '~:i::l:iE`? ?:;1 C:'LS.~G:'~c'i t ?e'~rr. In
any (11071v".!t?i ticinel C+,%rr`e'i i'G vT.':l y. t`1r a3^-'Coss : C';: to ,`?^xiav ? U-eS?1 ?rota
;hu working
Me by in talc
2aa tape proemmd from 01,d
The old rids xo ordered
3'. ix. the Plec Ceat ? iiout
10:00 x On 17 Jtz .3?,,
w W w : 1vt d t 'gib-
eton about 12x15 Eli on 18
die cards w run
zanies to teat o tdttion
z msi pz'tasi:tig. Nyo
They were them run thus
ra`t'a ?iv'.1.
With e t task, as ow
be seen h s 1e.
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To B
Tills i..2 tzar 144d
u ?d oa ;u lut o-
Z taper; since Uto
1950 carda Gti1.. t1
'110 we 3.'i l
drwmw
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 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2009/11/23: CIA-RDP82T00271 R000100120003-7
MEMORANI)MA FOR; Deputy Fir c;>ctor, Intelligence
FROM : A;ssi tart Director, CR
RJRj i.'CT : Corsi nts on the 'Report dated 1:$ ;fifty 1957 by the
Library Consultants - Number One
1. The report by the Library Consultants is highly critical of OCR.,
its Intelligence Subject Code, and its mechenized s ~proech to the docu-
men ation cr. oblem. It recom'?:ends that we (1) cease using microfilm
y , (2) abandon the Intellofax
aperture cards and ggo back to hard con
system, and. (3) expand the Intelligence Publications Index into a
monthly publication much li'r:e;. the y'ibliography of Agriculture which
should include "all documents, books, and periodicals that make a sub-
stantive contribution". Thin is like telling ur to. junk the family car
and buy a horse.
2. The specific cri ticIat in t~-- report are very disturbing. All
but a. few are at least partly vt:iIcl &nd, though t y carve only to under-
line and emphasize defects of which ve were rlready aware and for which
we were already tryinF to find cures, sore o 5ben, do reveel weaknesreea
whose existence we did not tiuspoct. We knew the family car had plenty
of squeaks ahd rattles, but we did not believe it was in quite such bsd
shape as the Consultants say it is.
3. ;gloat of the many reco^2_,endc;.tione in thf report depend in large
measure on our decision as to whether we will or will not junk our
present syaterd in fr?vor of aci enlarged monthly index. This decision
nest be mode before we can discuss intelli.pr-ntly the -)ropoaelr for
reorCanInation. Accordingly we are making a detailed study of the
cent, and the advantages and disadvantages, of ecceptin, the basic
proposal. We need to snow whether the horse could hESul our load,
and what it would cost in upkeep, before at~:reei^F; t.!-,L-.t it is better
to Junk the family car than to attempt repairs.
4. One set of recommendations can probe bly he disposed of et the
prest. nt tine: i.e., those having to do with space.
The concept of a central focal point for the major reference
coil-ction:;, ,with the specirs.lized units and coll.ctions grouped around
it, is entirely agreeable to OCR End was, I believe, proposed by both
DD/I and OCR some wonthe fan o. The detailed ro~ca tals of the Consultants
for arrant:;ec ent of the several units are aiso antirely agreeable to us,
-' 30
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and I feel confident they would :-)rovic e us with opr:ce in which we could
accommodate ourselves to good advantage whether or not we accept all of
the proposals for reorgani2ation. In any
event, some cEiange6 in our
structure are inevitable in the, period? which will intervene before we
move, and it is certain ,at any detailed .lens which we draw up now
will have to be modified to zone degree in the final months before the
transition.
1 have instructed my Space Office to use
the Consultants' sug6estions as a basis for h 1f; panning,