Electronic Access to Factual Materials Information: The State of the Art

Abstract

Over the past 30 years we have seen a strong but uncoordinated effort to both increase the availability of numeric materials-property data in electronic media and to make the resultant mass of data more readily accessible and searchable for the end-user engineer. The end user is best able to formulate the question and to judge the utility of the answer for numeric property data inquiries, in contrast to textual or bibliographic data for which information specialists can expeditiously carry out searches.Despite the best efforts of several major programs, there remains a shortfall with respect to comprehensiveness and a gap between the goal of easy access to all the world's numeric databases and what can presently be achieved. The task has proven thornier and therefore much more costly than anyone envisioned, and computer access to data for materials scientists and engineers is still inadequate compared, for example, to the situation for molecular biologists or astronomers. However, progress has been made. More than 100 materials databases are listed and categorized by Wawrousek et al. that address several types of applications including: fundamental research, materials selection, component design, process control, materials identification and equivalency, expert systems, and education. Standardization is improving and access has been made more easy.In the discussion that follows, we will examine several characteristics of available information and delivery systems to assess their impact on the successes and limitations of the available products. The discussion will include the types and uses of the data, issues around data reliability and quality, the various formats in which data need to be accessed, and the various media available for delivery. Then we will focus on the state of the art by giving examples of the three major media through which broad electronic access to numeric properties has emerged: on-line systems, workstations, and disks, both floppy and CD-ROM. We will also cite some resources of where to look for numeric property data.