HC Deb 25 October 1949 vol 468 cc129-30W
93. Mr. Austin

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is satisfied that the staff of the Technical Information and Documents Unit is sufficiently equipped both with the necessary German language requirements and with the necessary technical knowledge for the best possible extraction of available information.

Mr. H. Wilson

The staff of the Technical Information and Documents Unit comprises a sufficient number of officers with German language qualifications and a small nucleus with the necessary technical knowledge to supervise the work that has to be done in abstracting information and making it available. I am also grateful to many branches of industry for assistance rendered in this work.

94. Mr. Austin

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that dissemination of knowledge gained by the Technical Information and Documents Unit is conveyed only by the medium of industrial research associations, and that many thousands of non-members of these associations are accordingly excluded from the use of such information; and whether, therefore, he will consider giving wider publicity to this service by advertisement in appropriate trade journals to enable individual firms

total imports; and, following the suspension of gold payments by the Bank of England in 1931, what were the total exports and imports for 1932, 1933, 1934, 1938, and of these totals what were to and from hard currency countries.

Mr. H. Wilson

The following are the figures:

to make application for the technical information available to them, or by the issue of a leaflet to the firms concerned apprising them of the knowledge and facilities available to them.

Mr. H. Wilson

No, the dissemination of knowledge gained by the Technical Information and Documents Unit is not restricted to research associations. In addition to 30 research associations, the Technical Information and Documents Unit also provides a direct service on a selective basis to 91 trade associations, 43 individual firms and 22 technical journals. Non-member firms are not excluded from these arrangements. The question whether and, if so, in what form, wide publicity should be given to the service of this Unit is currently under consideration.