Purpose: The paper aims to assess the utility of non-agriculture-specific information systems, databases, and respective controlled vocabularies (thesauri) in organising and retrieving agricultural information. The purpose is to identify thesaurus-linked tree structures, controlled subject headings/terms (heading words, descriptors), and principal…

In this paper, we propose a syntax-based text retrieval system for on-line language learning and use a fast regular expression search engine as its main component. Regular expression searches provide more scalable querying and search results than keyword-based searches. However, without a well-designed index scheme, the execution time of regular…

The Text-Pac System is capable of generating indexes and bulletins to provide a current information service without the selectivity feature. Indexes of the accumulated data base may also be used as a basis for manual retrospective searching. The manual search involves searching computer-prepared indexes from a machine readable data base produced…

Describes MANIS, an information system for retrieval of interdisciplinary information in management, which maintains traditional classification but allows the user to combine terms of his choice, where choice is restricted to terms belonging to the systems of traditional classification. (CWM)

The four chapters included in this report are based on LINCS project activities undertaken since 1968, with an emphasis on indexing tools in the language sciences and related problems. Chapter one, "Indexing Tools for the Language Sciences: Methodology," discusses the development of a LINCS thesaurus and its role in the LINCS network.…

The Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (MEDLARS) is described in detail including its indexing procedures, vocabulary, search strategies, products and services. This handbook also indicates the types of requests that are suitable for retrospective machine search in MEDLARS, and discusses the capabilities and limitations of the…

Demonstrates the property of inclusiveness of document retrieval systems where documents are indexed by unweighted terms and in which query search patterns are Boolean functions of descriptors and presents three methods for determining a partial ordering on a set of system responses to these queries. Eleven sources are listed. (FM)

The process of initiating and negotiating a literature search in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) data base is discussed in laymen's terms. The guide offers suggestions on choosing a data base, deciding whether to use computerized or manual retrieval, defining the search problem, and understanding the Boolean search strategy…

Sixth in a series of eight reports of a research study for the National Agricultural Library (NAL) on the effective utilization of bibliographic data bases in machine-readable form, this report deals with the query language, search strategy and related considerations for a particular information storage and retrieval system. One section of the…

Design equations are derived for three types of retrieval systems. The equation in each case shows the relationship between expected search length, used as a performance measure, and certain system characteristics having to do with the distribution of index terms over the document collection and the number of errors in the search requests. (MF)

Based on a series of studies performed by ERIC/Information Resources staff and consultants which focused on the activities of over 40 experienced online searchers, this report offers the following suggestions for enhancing certain online retrieval system features and making improvements in ERIC vocabulary: (1) the implementation of an online…

SOLAR is an interactive Storage and On-Line Automatic Retrieval system which is operational at Washington State University. It can run continuously with virtually any mix of tasks in a general purpose computing environment. (22 references) (Author)

This experiment used five index languages to form nine different index files to the same collection of documents. Each index term, in each language, was treated in two ways: as an independent English term, and as a coded entry in a faceted-type thesaurus which specified relationships between terms. The performance effect of the thesaurus was then…

TRIAL is an information processing system that will perform editing, indexing, and retrieval of textual and certain types of numeric information. The system allows for: (1) the creation and maintenance of a master file, (2) indexing on words designated as 'key' words or, alternatively, on every word in the text, excluding those common terms that…

Contained in this report are the results of the second phase (July, 1968 - June, 1970) of the File Organization Project, directed toward the development of a facility in which the many issues relating to the organization and search of bibliographic records in on-line computer environments could be studied. The papers in this volume deal…