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    "label": "\"History of the Technical Assistance Programs of the Marshall Plan and Successor Agencies, 1948-1961\"",
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    "title": "\"History of the Technical Assistance Programs of the Marshall Plan and Successor Agencies, 1948-1961\"",
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    "ocrText": "47\ncountries for journals to be written in semi-technical language understood by low-level technicians who had\nnot been trained at universities or higher technical schools.\n6.25\nThe abstract service was in part intended to fill this void. The service was also intended to\nmeet these needs pending the years in which the gap could be filled in Europe by the appearance of new\nnational publications of this type. The cost of technical magazines in Europe was quite high in relation to\nthe income of plant level personnel, limiting their access to these publications. The abstract service was also\nintended in part to minimize this problem during the period of the European Productivity Drives.\n6.26\nIn summary, there existed a vacuum or void of 10 to 30 years in European access to\ntechnological developments in the productivity sphere as reflected in the U.S. technical press. This service\nwas aimed in part to fill this void. It was not feasible to assemble and distribute actual copies of the trade\npress for this lengthy period.\n6.27\nThe digests and abstracts were fully technical, but written in as simple and uncomplicated a\nmanner as possible. They were prepared to be accessible to all levels of management, supervisors and labor,\nand were distributed so as to be readily available at the plant level. Digests and abstracts were coded and\nclassified by industry, process, and product, and prepared so as to trace innovations from developmental or\nexperimental stages to plant production. They covered major American developments going back over a ten\nyear period or longer. The abstracts condensed articles to a minimum of 25% of origina! length and ranged\nfrom one half to three page abridgements. Some 10,000 technical journal articles were processed annually.\nThey were usually translated on receipt, in the country of destination.\n6.28\nAs necessary, abstracts were followed up by copies of the original article in reprint or micro-\nfilm. In addition bibliographies were provided on related journal articles and other publications on the\nsubject.\n6.29\nCriteria were established for the screening of back issues of technical journals to determine\nrelevance in the light of later technological development. The rate at which technical material is absorbed in\na given industry was considered to be based on the characteristics of the industry and the particular technology\ninvolved. It was recognized that the development period for a process in the non-durable goods industries was\none to two years, with the process reaching its maximum application in two to three years after which the\nprocess importance may decline. For durable goods the transition from development to application and\ncontinued use period was much longer.\n37/\nSee BLS, Productivity Digests of U.S. Technical and Trade Journals, Washington, D.C., February 3,\n1950, and Proposed Productivity Digests of U.S. Technical Development, Washington, D.C., August\n4, 1950.\n38/\nSee a typical issue, U.S. Department of Commerce, Technical Digest, Vol. 2, No. 1, January 1952,\nWashington, D.C.\nNARA\nN LIBRARY"
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