AREAS INVESTIGATED INCLUDE SLOW MEMORY DATA STORAGE, THE PROBLEM OF DECODING FROM AN INDEX TO A SLOW MEMORY ADDRESS, THE STRUCTURE OF DATA LISTS AND DATA LIST OPERATORS, COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE HUMAN USER AND THE SYSTEM, PROCESSING OF RETRIEVAL REQUESTS, AND THE USER'S CONTROL OVER THE RETURN OF INFORMATION RETRIEVED. LINEAR, LINKED AND…

The command language features of 11 on-line information retrieval systems are presented in terms of the functional needs of a searcher sitting at a terminal. Functional areas considered are: becoming familiar with the system, receiving help when in trouble, regulating usage, selecting a data base, formulating simple queries, expressing single…