The role of annotated bibliographies in information dissemination.

In July 1982, a comprehensive questionnaire was sent to a random sample of names on the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NDIC) mailing list to measure user satisfaction with and use of annotated bibliographies about diabetes topics. The bibliographies are used to learn more about a topic and to locate cited materials. The total number of publications ordered by this sample is 8,857; therefore, an extrapolation from these data suggests that more than 45,000 publications were ordered as a direct result of the citations as the source of information.