Describes the evolution of computerized information storage and retrieval from its mid-nineteenth century beginnings in theoretical works on logic by George Boole, to the applications of Boole's logic to switching circuits by Claude Shannon in the 1930s, to the development of coordinate indexing by Mortimer Taube in the 1940s and 1950s. (Contains…

Describes a demonstration student-oriented information retrieval system developed at Indiana University that works on a data file of MARC records. Background and implementation, searching and printing features (command structure, fields), and use of the system in an information science course are highlighted. Four references are included. (EJS)