This document contains abstracts of papers on database design and management which were presented at the 1986 mid-year meeting of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS). Topics considered include: knowledge representation in a bilingual art history database; proprietary database design; relational database design; in-house databases;…

Describes the PADOK-II project in Germany, which was designed to give information on the effects of linguistic algorithms on retrieval in a full-text database, the German Patent Information System (GPI). Relevance assessments are discussed, statistical evaluations are described, and searches are compared for the full-text section versus the…

This study evaluates the "Education Resources Information Center" (ERIC), "Library and Information Science Abstracts" (LISA), and "Library Literature" (LL) databases, determining how long the databases take to enter records (indexing delay), how much duplication of effort exists among the three databases (indexing…

The New York Times" Information Bank is described in detail. Scheduled to be in operation in 1972, this project makes available abstracts of newspaper articles for on-line search and retrieval, combined with microform copies of the original articles. (Author)

At the Smithsonian Science Information Exchange, a computer system indexes word combinations in research summaries, according to a Classifying Dictionary, prior to review by the professional staff. (Author/PF)

This paper identifies the bibliographic and numeric databases on CD-ROM and computer diskette that should be most useful for investigators in communication, marketing, and communication education. Bibliographic databases are usually found in three formats: citations only, citations and abstracts, and full-text articles. Numeric databases are…

Investigated the relative merits of searching on titles, subject headings, abstracts, free-language terms, and combinations of these elements. The combination of titles and abstracts came the closest to 100 percent retrieval. (Author/PF)

Proposes indexing technical information by function and attribute instead of indexing by subject to increase retrieval efficiency. Reasons for the lack of accurate and comprehensive technical product information in databases and the need for an improvement in reference services are discussed. (RBF)

Describes the scope, content, and retrieval characteristics of Sociological Abstracts, an online database of literature in the social sciences. Sample searches are displayed, and the strengths and weaknesses of the database are summarized. (FM)

Investigates methods for the correct and efficient handling of annotations in a full-text information-retrieval system in a hypertext environment. Goals were to increase relevant items retrieved, reduce non-relevant items, permit selective retrieval, and to explore the notion of distance between words as given in the distance-evaluation algorithm.…

In order to permit systematic searching of multiple data bases to satisfy requests in interdisciplinary areas, a mapping of a portion of "Medical Subject Headings" to three other controlled vocabularies has been constructed. (Author)

The author presents a conceptual analysis of the role of bibliographic citations in the control and retrieval of U.S. government publications, and a factual examination of citation forms for government documents as prescribed by eight major style manuals. A discussion of the general purpose of bibliographic citations and the relationship between…

Describes the broad scope of publications and information content in both printed and computer-readable versions of Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index (CASSI), including special characteristics, growth rates, and the use of CASSI as a union list. A discussion of the uses of CASSI which are possible through searching the computer-readable file…

Presents a general overview of the development of Information Science Abstracts. The historical perspective, including the contributions of individuals and institutions, is discussed; its coverage is compared with that of other information science databases; and retrieval capabilities are described. (four references) (Author/CLB)

This report details the various search methods applicable to the ERIC database through the use of manual indexes available in paper and microfiche form. It provides examples of searches for both documents and journal articles, illustrating the use of ERIC thesaurus terms, subject descriptor/identifier indexes on microfiche, paper indexes, the…