Describes a comparative study of the "help" facilities of 16 interactive information retrieval systems. Guidelines for the design of a "help" facility are presented and then used to evaluate the quality and friendliness of each system. Suggestions for the improvement of online "help" facilities are discussed. (31…

Describes a study that measured the speed, error rates, and subjective evaluation of arrow jump keys, a jump mouse, number keys, and a touch screen in an interactive encyclopedia. The results of previous studies are discussed as well as the findings of this study. Improvements in selection devices are suggested. (41 references) (Author/CLB)

Suggests new method of external distribution called tree partitioning that involves use of binary tree to split incoming file into successively smaller partitions for internal sorting. Number of disc accesses during a tree-partitioning sort were calculated in simulation using files extracted from British National Bibliography catalog files. (19…

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food conducted an operational evaluation of the software packages CAIRS and STATUS, which were used to build databases and databanks. Setting up the trial, types of data involved (chemical products used as pesticides), searching and presentation of data, and the final choice are covered. (EJS)

Five models which perform search tasks of the Data Base Access and Search Environment (DBASE) are presented and used for comparison with subject search performance--unconstrained (rule-based, decision theoretic) and constrained (optimal rule-based, rule-based, probabilistic rule-based). Previous experiments and the modeling approach are briefly…

Describes a study conducted on the cystic fibrosis (CF) database, a subset of MEDLINE, that investigated clustering structure and the effectiveness of cluster-based retrieval as a function of the exhaustivity of the uncontrolled subject descriptions. Results are compared to calculations for controlled descriptions based on Medical Subject Headings…

Describes an iterative method of document retrieval similar to relevance feedback in that user feedback is utilized in subsequent iterations. However, this method compares retrieved documents with each other using algebraic formulae which determine the boundaries of the area that contains descriptions of relevant documents. Fifteen references are…

Describes study of manual and experimental automated circulation systems in a university library in Nigeria. Data were collected for eight circulation activities in order to calculate the direct labor costs of circulating a book on each system. Automated system's book circulation costs were higher although direct labor costs were less. (MBR)

Evaluates and compares two recently proposed automatic methods for relevance feedback of Boolean queries (Dillon method, which uses probabilistic approach as basis, and disjunctive normal form method). Conclusions are drawn concerning the use of effective feedback methods in a Boolean query environment. Nineteen references are included. (EJS)

Describes the results of a survey that examined what kinds of database vendors are improving their retrieval software and the decision processes involved. Respondents included large and small vendors from the public and private sectors. An appendix presents vendors' reasons for and against specific innovations. (12 references) (CLB)