2. Overview of scientific sources

In just a few years, the development of technologies linked or associated with the microcomputer has enabled a significant growth in the number of factual sources. Magnetic storage and simple, affordable database management systems enable any laboratory to become a producer of digital databases. In scientific and technical literature, these sources are described under various names:

• digital or factual data banks;

• digital or factual databases (data base) ;

• directories ;

• data collection ;

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