A STUDY OF REQUIREMENTS FOR ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF A TRANSDUCER INFORMATION CENTER

Between 1959 and 1961, a committee was established in the Instrumentation Branch of the Aeronautical Systems Division to make an accurate assessment of the state of the art of telemetry transducers with respect to progress in telemetry systems. One of many conclusions reached by this committee was that a central organization was needed to collect and disseminate transducer information on a current basis. Battelle Memorial Institute contracted to determine essential requirements for the establishment and operation of a transducer information center to fulfill this need. The program was initiated by conducting a study of existing information centers to determine whether or not some such organization was active in disseminating transducer information. As a part of this study, letters of inquiry were distributed to approximately 200 researchers, users, and manufacturers of transducers. The replies to these inquires helped define the types of service desired from a transducer information center, types of transducer information needed for providing this service to the technical community, proper selection of storage and retrieval techniques, and the qualifications of technical personnel needed to process information and provide technical assistance. The second phase of the program involved the operation of a pilot transducer information center to study problems that will be faced in the operation of a matured information center. Approximately 600 selected transducer documents were processed during the pilot-operation phase. (Author)