The emphasis of this text is that the problems of information retrieval are the intellectual ones of subject analysis and description. These problems are not easily solved by technology alone, although certain inroads are being made by knowledge-based expert systems and other computer aids to indexing. Linguistic approaches are also showing promises. These areas, as well as regional subject access, hypertext, nonsubject access, and other leading edge information topics are examined in this book. The 12 chapters address: (1) basics of information retrieval; (2) the database industry; (3) subject access: problems and performance criteria; (4) the user-intermediary interface; (5) subject analysis and representation; (6) language in retrieval; (7) selection and evaluation of databases; (8) searching the database; (9) evaluation criteria and procedures; (10) factors affecting performance in information retrieval; (11) automatic methods of information retrieval; and (12) trends and future developments. A 23-page bibliography and an index are included. (JLB)