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In a recent article with the above title R. C. Coile publishes a list of electrical engineering periodicals arranged in the order of the frequency with which references were made to them in the articles contained in six ‘key’ journals in 1949. It is then stated: ‘This method of ranking periodical journals may be considered to provide an approximate index of usefulness of the periodicals to engineers and librarians.’ There is no doubt that the list is of considerable interest, and probably represents no less than is claimed for it as an approximation to a rather uncertain truth; but a warning is necessary against according such a list a greater degree of authority than it deserves. Its character is determined by the choice of the six ‘key’ journals, which was made on the basis of a ‘preliminary pilot survey’, of which no details are given; the list might well have been different had other ‘key’ journals been chosen.

A study of problems of documentation in Electrical Engineering is being carried out at the Vail Library of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This paper reports some of the preliminary progress. The periodicals used by electrical engineers have been studied by analysing the footnote references in six key journals for a year. A list of 308 source journals ranked in relative usefulness by the number of reference citations is given. One measure of the useful life of a paper is the time interval between publication of the paper and its citations as a reference. Fifty per cent. of the references analysed were less than 4 years old and only 5 per cent. of the total references were more than 25 years old. It is estimated that there are between 10,000 and 20,000 papers of interest to electrical engineers published each year. The total number of such papers published since 1900 is estimated to be of the order of 250,000 to 500,000. Literature searching is aided by a number of abstract and reference publications. The possibility of mechanizing a portion of a library's activities by microfilm abstract machines of the Bush ‘Rapid Selector’ type is now being studied.

The term ‘obsolescence’ occurs frequently in the literature of librarianship and information science. In numerous papers we are told how most published literature becomes obsolete within a measurable time, and that an item receives half the uses it will ever receive (‘half‐life’) in a few years. ‘Obsolescence’ is however very rarely defined, and its validity, interest, and practical value are often assumed rather than explained. Before reviewing studies on ‘obsolescence’, therefore, it is necessary to look at the concept and to identify the reasons why it should be of interest.

Line's recently proposed technique for correcting the ‘apparent’ half‐life to allow for the rate of growth of the literature and Vickery's critical analysis of the proposal are both further analysed. Using the concept of utility and considering the sampling variances involved, the paper shows that Line's technique is both questionable and impractical, and that a further factor—the growth of the number of contributors—needs to be allowed for in Vickery's analysis. A collaborative empirical investigation is proposed.

This study focuses around the central question of whether or not the relative importance of conformity to institutional norms varies as markets become more competitive.

Using data gathered for 187 managed health care plans in the US, this study uses hierarchical regression analysis involving blocked variables.

This study finds that conformity to technical environmental requirements has a significant impact on performance at all levels of competition. However, the importance of conformity to institutional norms increases as markets becomes more competitive.

From the perspective of MCOs, this means that managers need to carefully monitor the prevailing technical and institutional environmental forces and match their responses according to the competitiveness of their individual markets. From a societal perspective, this study suggests that improved health care delivery is likely to result from increased competition in the managed care market.

Prior research has shown that conformity to social norms is important for MCO performance. However, this is the first study to examine the whether the importance of conformity to social norms varies as a function of market competition.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the past events where communication challenges have occurred during a disaster, and events in which amateur radio had played a vital role in creating reliable communication links during the disaster response. Furthermore, this paper identifies the modern technology available with amateur radio operators that can be used to create reliable communication networks in order to meet the high demand of disaster communication.

In this paper the author has conducted an integrative literature review, while analyzing case studies of disasters where communication challenges have occurred and the amateur radio has provided communication support during a disaster response.

In today’s world there is a heavy reliance on centralized communications infrastructure such as cell towers, which are very likely to fail during a disaster. Failure or overload of such infrastructure will cause disruptions in communications and make the disaster response inefficient. Amateur radio does not rely on centralized communications infrastructure, and has the ability to be used to meet the demand during many disaster situations. Thus, it is very important for emergency professionals to understand the value of including amateur radio operators in emergency operations plans.

Research is qualitative in nature, with an aim to write a short paper introducing the issues of Disaster Communications.

This paper is intended to provide an insight about the importance of reliable communications during a disaster. Communication interruptions can create a lot of problems and cause inadequate coordination between response agencies. In order to mitigate such challenges it is crucial to study the vital role of amateur radio in supporting the communications when all other mediums of communication fail.

THE process of setting up the new Polytechnics initiated by the White Paper of May, 1966 entitled “A Plan for Polytechnics and other Colleges” is now approaching completion. Of the 30 Polytechnics proposed 14 have now been established and practically all the others should be in operation by next September. All of them embrace one or more Colleges of Technology. Colleges of Art, Building and Commerce are also involved and, in two cases, Colleges of Education.

A probabilistic mechanism is proposed to describe various forms of the Bradford phenomenon reported in bibliometric research. This leads to a stochastic process termed the Waring process, a special case of which seems to conform with the general features of ‘Bradford's Law’. The presence of a time parameter in the model emphasises that we are considering dynamic systems and allows the possibility of predictions being made.