Critiques existing approaches to computerized support for browsing and describes four new types of browsers that have been implemented in the Xerox NoteCards hypertext system. These browsers support the process of pursuing and returning from digressions and facilitate the integration of diverse sets of materials that have been browsed. (16…

Provides overview of Ergonomics Abstracts Retrieval System (EARS), an online bibliographic search and retrieval system in the area of human factors engineering. Other online systems are described, the design of EARS based on inverted file organization is explained, and system expansions including a thesaurus are discussed. (Author/LRW)

Describes OAKDEC, a program based on decision-making logic that uses expert system techniques to assess the status of a database search and to provide recommendations to the user on how to proceed. The discussion focuses on the use of OAKDEC as a research tool for studying user behavior. (20 references) (Author/CLB)

Describes a project that is developing an intelligent search intermediary to help users locate relevant passages in large full text databases. (The system automatically reformulates Boolean queries to improve search results and presents retrieved passages in decreasing order of estimated relevance.) The current status of the project and plans for…

Current awareness services at AT&T Bell Laboratories are described: bulletins announcing over 80,000 externally published items/year; production of four commercial machine-readable databases and camera-ready bulletin copy by Bell Laboratories Publication, Alerting, and Retrieval System (BELLPAR); photocopy service. Improvements in service are…

Discusses indeterminancy of selection of terms by indexers and by inquirers as major factors influencing subject access to documents in document retrieval systems. Five types of interactions between these two indeterminancies are discussed, and a change in traditional method of subject searching is suggested to reduce effect of inter-indexer…

Discussion of database design that allows wider range of capabilities than conventional information retrieval database covers prestructuring of searches to pinpoint target items, which are selected from browseable display, and navigation capability, which allows user to move from record to record within database to facilitate extraction of…

Zipfian laws for frequency distributions of word pairs and longer phrases are derived from text sample analysis. From crossing of Zipfian curves, it is deduced that number of multi-word phrases that occur frequently in text is surprisingly small, of same order of magnitude as number of individual word-types. (8 references) (EJS)

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) software research and development project described explores information seeking behavior of end-user energy experts and develops software offering tutorials on front-end use of DOE/RECON databases and active help in performing online searches. Software development is described and results of prototype testing…

Reviews the development of computing in the arts in the United Kingdom as a case study, and discusses some of the implications of the recent increase in the use of computers in the humanities in colleges and universities. (Author/MBR)

Looks at some of the problems of finding digital geographic data in the electronic information infrastructure. Discusses the literature describing trends in organizing information resources in an electronic environment, including spatial information cataloging systems; the paper-based system from which they arose; and new Internet finding tools.…