Information Storage and Retrieval最新文献

The theory and practical applications of bibliographic coupling are reviewed. The reviewer takes issue with the use of bibliographic coupling for information retrieval and automatic classification on logical grounds, and for reasons relating to uncontrolled citation practices. The usefulness of the procedure for the study of the science of science and bibliometrics is granted.

A novel service is proposed to help authors of scientific papers to select journals to which to submit their manuscripts. The aim of the service is to optimize the common interests of authors, readers/users, and science, by providing the authors with a tool for reaching those readers who can most benefit from the news of their accomplishments. The five basic factors which intervene in the choice of a journal are analyzed: relevance, acceptance rate, circulation, prestige and publication lag. With the help of a mathematical model, we show how these five variables can be used in a plausible decision procedure leading to the selection of journals suitable for the publication of given papers.

A comprehensive review of the experimental information storage and retrieval system developed by Project Intrex is presented, together with a description of major results and conclusions that were derived through use of the system. Salient features of the Intrex system included an augmented catalog stored in an online interactive computer in combination with full-text storage on microfiche. Guaranteed access to full text at remote locations was provided through use of an automatic fiche storage and retrieval system that was computer-controlled. Discussed in the paper are the details of the catalog structure, user experiments, economic studies and information-system networking.

The Water Resources Document Reference System. Environment Canada (WATDOC), has been established to increase awareness of environmental information related to water resources. Participants are found throughout Canada at all levels of management and research. The designers of WATDOC reconcile the conflicts posed by a centralized data base operated by a decentralized community through the recognition of certain economic conditions and through the use of network techniques. Every effort is made to obtain the cooperation of users and suppliers of information, to provide access to data bases, to incorporate advances in technology, and to search for system improvement. “Invisible colleges” are established through seminars and personal contact and correspondence. The information in the data base is identified by indexing and classification methods combined, through the use of a UDC thesaurus/concordance. All data bases within the network may be accessed directly by on-line or batch methods, by telephone-query or specialist-terminal interaction, or by mail. Relevant research is supported. Research related to this paper has resulted in the development of a UDC thesaurus/concordance and in a set of programs to support an interactive on-line classification-linked thesaurus for indexing, classification, search and retrieval. Implementation, operation, and development of WATDOC are discussed in detail.

At the Second International Conference on Mechanised Information Storage and Retrieval held at Cranfield in 1969, results were presented illustrating the application of a suite of computer programs (the STATUS package) to the searching of the full text of U.K. atomic energy legislation. These programs were at that time implemented on a KDF9 computer at the Culham Laboratory. Since then the programs have been rewritten in modified form for the IBM 370/165 machine at Harwell and used to search (both in batch mode and on-line) the text of material supplied by the Council of Europe. The present paper describes current progress with this work.

The Agreements, Conventions and Protocols concluded between the Member States of the Council of Europe are a largely self-contained set of documents admirably suited for a small-scale full-text retrieval system. They cover a wide range of subject matter including economic, social, cultural, scientific, legal and administrative topics. The best known and the most important of the Conventions is that concerned with the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. A feature of particular interest is that English and French are the official languages of the organisation and thus the documents are available in both these languages. The total size of the text is some 200,000 words in each language.

For searching purposes the computer stores both the text itself and an inverted file to the text which gives the address (in terms of document, sentence and position in the sentence) of each word. The QUEST search language provides facilities for the enquirer to interrogate the text using logical and positional operators. These operators use the address file to determine which documents satisfy the search criterion formulated by the user. This makes possible a wide variety of searching techniques.

The QUEST language includes a special facility which enables an enquirer to formulate at the console, and to store for his use, what are termed “macro” operators and “macro” words. For example, one commonly used “macro” searches text for the definition of a word or phrase, another looks for dates contained in the text. Once a macro is defined it may be used in the formulation of other operators or words. This feature of the language offers the user the opportunity of building up his own library of searching algorithms, as simple or as complex as he wishes, which are personal to him.

The paper describes the main features of the computer programs as implemented on the IBM 370/165 at Harwell, and includes results of typical search enquiries.

A brief history of library use studies is followed by an analysis of the “Use Studies” indexed in Library Literature from 1960 to 1973. In addition to comparisons of the use studies conducted by public, college, school and special libraries, statistical comparisons are made of the use studies conducted by the United States and those conducted by other countries. Data on the types of patrons studied, the number of libraries selected for research, and the variety of uses represented in use studies appear in a series of tables. Areas in need of research are examined and summarized.