This report discusses the program and plans of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for 1979-80. The publication provides an overview of the major program activities for fiscal year 1979 and plans for 1980. The center provides data to monitor trends in education and address key policy issues. These data are supplemented by special…

The file organization for the computerized Flora North America (FNA) data bank is described. A four level character hierarchy allows subdivision of any flora description into as many as four levels in order to specify plant character precisely. Terms at any one level will not necessarily be parallel in status. Both PLANTS and LEAVES serve as…

An explanation is provided of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), a national information system that collects, processes, and makes available a wide range of educational documents. Contents of the guide include an explanation of the major components of the ERIC system; searching by subject, author, or institution in the ERIC…

This discussion of the alternative design features being considered for the National Education Practice File presents three design configurations for each feature, demonstrating how they differ and suggesting which is the most likely candidate for the pilot test based on utility benefits, technical feasibility, adherence to Federal Information…

An update of an April 1977 survey, this one sought to define more precisely the extent of state education agency activities in the area of educational resource data bases. The survey was mailed to all U.S. states and territories; the response rate was 66 percent. Ninety-seven percent of the respondents, an increase of 29 percent over the 1977…

Databases and clearinghouses useful in education are described in this two part document. The first section contains one-page summaries of 55 databases of interest to people in education. The types of information provided by the various databases are indicated, including bibliographies, funding information, statistics, government publications and…

This report describes the composition and operation of the library of the Gray Freshwater Biological Institute at the University of Minnesota, a non-traditional information service which provides information to the institute by combining the use of three bibliographic databases with current awareness services, OCLC, MINITEX, and author reprint…

The users of online retrieval systems can and should provide feedback to the system operators or vendors to influence them to make changes and further improvements, or to reinforce operator's decisions to make changes in the systems. All members of the database chain--database producers, processors, search service brokers, searchers, and end users…

A primary goal of this project was to develop an interface that would provide direct access for inexperienced users to existing online bibliographic information retrieval networks. The experiment tested the concept of a virtual-system mode of access to a network of heterogeneous interactive retrieval systems and databases. An experimental…

This study discusses the problems of conceptual and bibliographic access to the literature of the social sciences. The study is intended to assist both professionals and students who are conducting social science research. Part I examines conceptual access and search strategies. It traces the flow of social science information from original…

This thesaurus presents the specialized terminology and air pollution indexing terms used for the storage of, and search for, information in the Air Pollution Technical Information Center (APTIC) data base file, and illustrates the rules formulated for their use. The meanings of the terms are implied rather than defined, being implicit in the…

This three-part report includes a brief history of the Defense Documentation Center (DDC) with a description of the collections and their accessibility; categorization of automatic indexing into three kinds with a brief description of the DDC system of machine-aided indexing; and an indication of some operational experiences with the system.…

This examination of numeric data base activities grew out of a continuing effort to develop a system of statistical indicators of scientific and technical communication. A broad mix of directories, listing by subject field, reports, mail inquiries and telephone and face-to-face interviews was used to collect information. Scientific and technical…

This is a progress report on a project attempting to design a system of compacting text for storage appropriate to disc oriented demand searching. After noting a number of previously designed methods of compression, it offers a tentative solution which couples a dictionary of most frequent character-strings with a set of variable-length codes. The…

In this volume are summaries of some 30 talks presented at the workshop. Topics covered include Civil Service Commission standards for classification of librarians and library technicians, data bases, library administration, legal and legislative materials, and user education. A list of participants with addresses and phone numbers if appended.…