MONO91 Indexes Compiled by Machine chapter Mary Elizabeth Stevens National Bureau of Standards McCormick's bibliography on mechanized library processes (1963 [407]) lists a number of early suggestions, notably those of Fair in 1936 [187], Shera in 1938 [547], and Gates [zzs] and Callander [96, 97, 98] in 1946. Cox, Bailey and Casey proposed the use of punched card equipment for the preparation of bibliographies in the field of chemistry in 1945 [14z]. By 1946, Gull claimed that: ..... Punched cards and present equipment offer new possibilities right now for solving the problems of the indexes to Chemical Abstracts. These indexes are large undertakings in themselves, and the work of arranging, cumulating, and printing them can be simplified by placing the index information on punched cards at the time the abstracts are made. With current indexes on punched cards, two or three cumulations of the author index during the year will greatly reduce the work required in using current issues from that approach. Cumu- lations of the subject, patent, and formula indexes immediately become possible for intervals more frequent than once a year. 11 [245] The following year (1947) saw a summary by Gull of potential applications of punched cards in special libraries [247], and Becker surveyed some of the then discernible prospects for library mechanization, as a student in the Library School of Catholic University. He stressed such advantages as flexibility in the processing of new material for abstracting, indexing? filing, and interfiling purposes and the printing out of various listings in any format. [OCRerr]/ The potential use of machines for library science and documentation had not actually been recognized, however, for many years after the invention of punched card equipment. Both the punched card developments (beginning with Hollerith and Powers in the 1880's) and the electronic computers developed from 1946 onward were first applied to the auto- matic manipulation of information in the sense of statistical, mathematical, or engineer mg data, rather than to information about data or information about other information. Dr. John Shaw Billings, himself a librarian of note, was apparently the first to suggest to Herman Hollerith the idea of recording information as holes punched in cards which could then be sorted mechanically. [OCRerr] Larkey comments: "It is not known if Billings ever thought of applying the principle to bibliographic work, but it would seem eminently fitting that it might be so utilized it 3/ Larkey himself as head of the Army Medical Library Research Project at the Welch Medical Library, Johns Hopkins University, was certainly one of the pioneers in such utilization, but this was almost 70 years from the date of the Billings-Hollerith conversations. The Army Project, begun in late 1948 or early 1949, had as its contract 1i Becker, 1947, [43], pp. 11-12: "From the flexible arrangement of the cards, bibliographies become readily available by subject, author, and title. In special libraries, where material on one subject is concentrated, the research possibilities of gathering, sorting, filing, and printing information are almost limitless. Con- tinuous machine interfiling permits keeping current with new entry additions." 2I 3/ "With the masters...", 1963 [648], p.18. Larkey, 1953[351], p.34. 20