If the drafting office is not near the record room, however, it may be well to equip the record room with an electric blue-printing machine and a small washing tank, so that blue prints of each card may be made without the necessity of taking confidential record cards out of the room. Photographic processes for copying records have recently been much improved. A machine called the photostat makes black and white copies quickly without the expense of glass negatives. With a blue-print machine or

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a photostat in the record room, it would be a very simple matter to copy periodically the complete current set of curves so that the crossindex of cards by function or account may be provided for the executive, as described in the preceding paragraphs.

The plan suggested for a record department sounds much more complex than it really is. In considering the space and expense necessary for such a department it must be borne in mind that the time of the chief executive of a modern corporation is of a great value -- almost beyond computation. The value of the president's time in a large corporation cannot be figured out on the basis of his salary, for it is certainly true that the executives of large corporations receive salaries much less than the value of their services to their corporation. A single "yes" or "no" decision of the corporation executive usually involves a gain or loss in the earnings of the corporation greater than the executive's salary for a whole year. Anything that can be done to give the president and the other executives better and more cjuickly available information on which to base decisions is justifiable and should be installed practically without regard to cost.