An automatic abstracting system, named ADAM, implemented on the IBM 370, receives journal articles as input and produces abstracts as output. An algorithm has been developed which considers every sentence in the input text and rejects sentences which are not suitable for inclusion in the abstract. All sentences which are not rejected are included…

Indexing and abstracting can be thought of as a way of modeling an actual document or textual item. Both are miniature versions of the actual thing. Normally, the indexing model is used to locate desired information, while the abstracting model is used as a screening medium to help the searcher decide which of the apparently correct actual items…

The only paper printed in full in this digest is the Miles Conrad Memorial Lecture given by Dr. Burton W. Adkinson entitled: "After Organization X - What Next?" Dr. Adkinson reviews a national plan for abstracting and indexing services proposed by Robert Heller and Associates in the early sixties, in the light of the current requirements…

The main purpose of this report is to help novice reviewers accelerate their apprenticeship at the Nuclear Safety Information Center, a computerized information service sponsored by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Guidelines for reviewers are presented in Part 1; Part 2 contains guidelines for the novice editor. The goal of the reviewers and…

Examines four working steps from an empirical model where an expert abstractor discovers what a paper is about and drafts a topic sentence; a simulation system is developed using this model. Discusses knowledge processing activities of professional summarizing. Results indicate that a small simulation model of professional summarizing is feasible.…

Describes a system that performs automatic summaries of news from a large commercial news service encompassing 41 different publications. This system was compared to a system that used only the lead sentences of the texts. Lead-based summaries significantly outperformed the sentence-selection summaries. (AEF)

This paper briefly reviews the information explosion of the last thirty years and the various attempts made to organize that information in new ways. Section B offers a brief historic review of modern classification and subject heading theory. Section C reviews the literature of automatic indexing, automatic abstracting, and automatic…

The Association of Information Dissemination Centers (ASIDIC) formed the Cooperative Data Management Committee to address the problems of information center operators and data base suppliers. The number of operating centers in the U.S. is limited and their future expansion in numbers and in type of services, will depend on the education of users.…

Discusses the developments that have positively or adversely affected abstracting and indexing services over the past several decades, addressing such topics as the impact of computers and the migration from print-on-paper to online information provision. Forecasts for the near and long-term future are made and a reference list is included. (JL)

Describes and evaluates a system that selects key information from an event database by reasoning about event frequencies, frequencies of relations between events, and domain-specific importance measures. The system aggregates similar information and plans a summary tailored to a stereotypical user. (AEF)

Questions of the automation of input, output and data processing on computers in systems of information services are covered in the discussion of peculiarities of applied computers and processed information, general characteristics of processing algorithms and problems of information input and output. This is followed by a discussion of the…

The papers given at the May 17-19 forum on Management of Information Analysis Centers held at the National Bureau of Standards in Gaithersburg, Md. are presented in four sessions separated by topic. Besides the welcoming remarks and the keynote address session 1 contains three general papers on information analysis centers and automatic data…

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CRITICAL ABSTRACTS OPENS THIS PAPER, FOLLOWED BY AN ANALYSIS OF THE MEANING OF THE WORDS "CRITICAL,""EVALUATIVE,""ABSTRACT," AND "REVIEW." AFTER DISCUSSING ONE OF THE PRIMARY PURPOSES OF CRITICAL ABSTRACTS, HELP TO SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL PERSONNEL IN MAKING DECISIONS ABOUT PUBLICATIONS TO OBTAIN, THE MEDIA OF THESE ABSTRACTS…

THE INVESTIGATION IS CONCERNED WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOMATIC INDEXING, ABSTRACTING, AND EXTRACTING SYSTEMS. BASIC INVESTIGATIONS IN ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY, PHONETICS, AND SYNTAX ARE PURSUED AS NECESSARY MEANS TO THIS END. IN THE FIRST SECTION THE THEORY AND DESIGN OF THE "SENTENCE DICTIONARY" EXPERIMENT IN AUTOMATIC EXTRACTION IS OUTLINED. SOME OF…

This second LARC (Library Automation Research and Consulting Association) automation survey presents a number of significant improvements over the first survey. Although the number of survey reports has not increased greatly, all of them have been updated and reflect, as nearly as it is possible to do, the current status of automation operations…