Documentation Incorporated

Documentation Incorporated was a US information services firm founded in 1952.

Documentation Incorporated, generally knonw as "Documemtation Inc.", was a US information services firm co-founded by Mortimer Taube, Gerald J. Sophar and others in 1952 to do research based on the uniterm approach and in the field of classification and subject headings.

Documentation Inc prospered. It was bought by acomputer leasing company, LEASCO, Inc., which in 1973 was renamed Reliance Group, Inc.[1]

Contributions

The company published Studies in Coordinate Indexing (by Taube) which discussed principles for establishing and combining Uniterms in coordinate indexes; searched for more efficient storage and retrieval devices; and developed the IBM 9900 Special Index Analyzer, referred to as COMAC (Continuous Multiple Access Collator); COMAC was a punched card collator which made logical relationships among subject terms; Used with the IBM 9900, the IBM 305 RAMAC would printout results from searches of subject terms; Eventually switched from the RAMAC to the IBM 1401 computer.

Developed mechanized data processing centers for handling scientific and technical information; Operated a technical center for NASA, which provided NASA with a combination abstract and citation journal with a machine-produced index covering NASA reports and acquisitions, regular bibliographies in certain areas of aeronautical and space sciences, microfilm reproductions of NASA reports, a high-speed reference service, and magnetic copies of the index to the total NASA collection; Produced for sale Computexts, a series on magnetic tape designed for computer print-out of selected materials.

Projects conducted or proposed included:

• Description of basic concepts of storage and search theory; development of basic logic and mathematics of coding for storage and retrieval, and descriptions of various types of memories.
• Integrated data-processing system for the screening of chemical compounds.
• Examining problems of automatic dictionaries and basic studies in automata and the logic of nerve nets.
• EDIAC, an experimental electronic random access searching device.
• Determination of applicability of modal logic to such fields as computing machinery and the exploration of basic unresovled problems in this type of logic.
• Processing of 100,000 test reports for the Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center.

Further reading

• "Mortimer Taube" Wikipedia [2]
• Shera, Jesse H. "Taube, Mortimer (1910-1965)." Dictionary of American library biography, ed. by Bohdan S. Wynar. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1978, pp 512-13. Somewhat critical.