Breton (1981) claims that engineers make little use of databases because indexers label items with the names of materials or devices while engineers are more likely to want to search for their attributes or the functions they perform. In other words, they would like to locate a material or device that satisfies some current requirement (for strength, conductivity, corrosion resistance, or whatever) without being able to name it. This is not a condemnation of subject indexing per se but of the indexing policies adopted by the majority of database producers. If a new material or alloy described in a report is said to have a certain tensile strength, the property may be indexed (e.g., by assigning the term tensile strength), but the particular value of the property (i.e., the strength attainable) would not be indexed by most database producers, although it may well be mentioned in the abstract. Of course, there is no reason why values could not be indexed (e.g., the term tensile strength might be subdivided into twenty more specific terms, each one representing a range of tensile strength values) and they would be in certain databases, such as a company’s indexes to its own contract files, indexes to data compilations, or certain patent databases. Some of Breton’s objections, then, could be countered by indexing at a much higher level of specificity. Functions can also be indexed as long as the possible functions of a device are identified by an author, and appropriate terms exist in the vocabulary of the database, but it is altogether unreasonable to expect the indexer to be able to recognize applications not specifically claimed by the author.