The Third Cranfield Conference on Mechanised Information Storage and Retrieval Systems was held on 20-23 July 1971 in Cranfield, England. The report describes a number of the key papers presented at this conference. (Author)

A series of experiments was performed to investigate the effectiveness and utility of automatically classifying documents through the use of multiple discriminant functions. Classification is accomplished by computing the distance from the mean vector of each category to the vector of observed frequencies of a document and assigning the document…

Discusses the role of certain types of classifications in a modern automated environment. (Author/PF)

Against a background of widespread interest in national information systems, the American Institute of Physics is developing such a system for physics. This program pivots on the design of a new classification system for physics which is to be used, in conjunction with free-language index terms, for the intellectual organization of the physics…

Reports on a series of programs that have been developed to process data bases, consisting of textual items, and to index and arrange (classify) the data items in accordance with an automatically generated classification system. (Author)

Large-scale, on-line information storage and retrieval systems pose numerous problems above those encountered by smaller systems. A step toward the solution of these problems is presented along with several demonstrations of feasibility and advantages. The methodology on which this solution is based is that of a posteriori automatic classification…

Subjects covered in this bibliography include manual, mechanized and automated techniques, evaluation of systems, standards, storage and retrieval systems, research, vocabularies, author participation, permuted title indexing, citation indexing, and specialized indexing requirements, i.e. chemistry, medicine, patents, engineering drawing, and…

THE BACKGROUND, OBJECTIVES, AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE PROJECT ARE REVIEWED BRIEFLY. SPECIFIC AREAS DISCUSSED ARE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE UDC SCHEDULES, A COMPUTER-BASED UDC FILE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, DATA BASES FOR RETRIEVAL EXPERIMENTS, AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM EVALUATION. THE CONCLUSIONS DEAL WITH THE USEFULNESS OF THE UDC FOR MECHANIZED RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS,…

STARTING FROM A MODEL OF CONTEMPORARY MECHANIZED RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS AND THE CHARACTERISTICS OF INDEXING LANGUAGES USED THEREIN, THE AUTHORS DEVELOP A RATIONAL BASIS FOR USE OF THE UNIVERSAL DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION (UDC) IN THIS CONTEXT. PRACTICAL DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE USE OF UDC IN A MECHANIZED RETRIEVAL SYSTEM ARE DISCUSSED. EXAMPLES ARE…

The identification of information elements can provide an important tool for the systematic development of an information system design. A state-of-the-art survey reveals mounting recognition and interest in the problem, a considerable history of prior efforts, but no well-defined methodology. A study in the context of a national information…

Based on material collected for system-automation studies within the efforts of the Linguistic Documentation Program toward development of a Language Information Network and Clearinghouse System (LINCS), the bibliography lists 216 references under the headings: (1) Survey, Reviews, Symposia (19 references); (2) File-organization Principles (18…

The report summarizes work done in the study of measures for the effectiveness of the performance of large file systems. It consists of six sections: An "Introduction and Summary" which describes the background for the study, the approach taken in it, and summarizes the results; A discussion of the "Forms of Input", which characterizes the basic…

The exponential growth in the literature of most fields has produced a near crisis situation for the people who provide storage and retrieval facilities for this same literature. One useful tool suggested for anyone interested in mechanizing the process of information storage and retrieval requires that vocabulary used in the system be divided…

This report describes the development and operations of FORMAT, a Canadian database system designed to achieve comprehensive national bibliographic control of Canadian-produced audiovisual materials. FORMAT's developmental criteria are outlined, including its emphasis on Canadian-produced audiovisual documents, French/English bilingualism,…