Data Bank

data bank

Any electronic depository of data.

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data bank [′dad·ə ‚baŋk]

(computer science)

A complete collection of information such as contained in automated files, a library, or a set of computer disks.

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Data Bank 

(also data base), a collection of information sources on a certain subject equipped with a system for retrieving the sources. A data bank is set up after studying the information needs of the category of users that the bank is intended to serve. The functions of the data bank include the acquisition, processing, and storing of both published materials and unpublished scientific and technical documents, such as reports, plans, efficiency proposals, and manuscripts. The bank must be able to search the data in order to provide the required information. Data banks provide enterprises, organizations, and individual specialists with primary and secondary sources of information, as well as with factual information.

In the USSR, data banks are a necessary part of the nationwide system of scientific and technical information, and they are set up at all all-Union, republic, and territorial scientific and technical information agencies, at all central information agencies serving the various sectors of the national economy, and at enterprises, scientific research institutes, and design bureaus. The delineation of subject areas and the coordination of data services provided by data banks at different levels of the information service are carried out according to lists of headings of the data banks of all-Union, republic, and territorial scientific and technical information agencies and central information agencies serving the various sectors of the national economy.

I. M. MONASTYRSKII