About this issue

FRISCHMUTH and Allen present data on a subject that has been explored in a number of articles in this Transactions over the past several years — the thought processes involved in solving scientific or engineering problems. It is a field receiving increased attention for a number of reasons. One of the major reasons it is of current interest is related to the situation in the fields of technical information retrieval and technology transfer. Following several decades of rapid and expensive development of information dissemination techniques, it is now being recognized that many of the existing systems and many of those under development do not match the information requirements, the information — ingesting capabilities, and the information seeking and using style of a large percentage of the R, D & E population.