The Reading Habits of Engineers a Preliminary Survey

According to the results of a preliminary survey, about half of the engineers in the aerospace and avionics industry read a professional society journal, about half read at least one of the review journals, about two-thirds read the more serious technical magazines, and about one-quarter read technical contract reports issued by firms or agencies other than their own. The 1765 returns obtained from 2200 questionnaires distributed (2000 in the Military Products Group of Honeywell, Inc., and 200 in three divisions of the Martin Company) indicate that certain groups, such as supervisors, authors of signed articles or symposium papers, and engineers holding advanced degrees, read much more than engineers in general do. Supervisors depend more on technical magazines than other groups do, and authors and advanced degree holders depend more on professional journals and review journals than others do. On the whole, nonsupervisory engineers who have won awards for exceptional creativity read much more than the average. The encouragement of the reading of at least certain classes of periodicals should advance the cause of continuing education, but a number of questions remain to be answered.