"Do you have recommendations on how to access these old foreign journals, especially translations?" Questions like this from our scientists and engineers have been on the rise lately, and when an MIT chemist recently asked this, our staff in Hayden Library welcomed the opportunity to more rigorously investigate pathways into this elusive gray literature. Fifty years ago the demand for this material motivated federal and private organizations to fund and develop what became a miniature ecosystem for these works. Scientific societies and commercial publishers established cover-to-cover translation journals; however, thousands of individual articles were translated and distributed as technical reports through public and private outlets. Librarians recognized the value of these documents and created both access tools and special collections to facilitate their use. But what about today? With instant access to translator tools and robust databases, are there reasons to consult these historical tools to find a translation created before 1970?.
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