Describes traditional legal information retrieval systems--Juris, Lexis, Westlaw--and several new rule-based, knowledge-based, legal knowledge reasoning, and analytical legal information systems--Waterman and Peterson's Legal Decisionmaking System, Hafner's Legal Information Retrieval System, McCarty's TAXMAN, and the deBessonet representation of…

This examination of abstracting-indexing services for the field of history focuses on Historical Abstracts (HA) and America--History and Life (AHL), and their relationship to the American Bibliographical Center's Subject Profile Index (ABC-SPIndex). The history, scope, selection criteria, and classification arrangements of the two databases are…

WISE is an on-line, interactive information retrieval system designed to operate on key-word-oriented data bases. The WISE user searches a data base by entering and combining key-words that are appropriate to the data base and the subject matter. The user also enters certain command statements to enhance the results of the search and to control…

The report is concerned with the implementation of an on-line information storage and retrieval system for the Rome Air Development Center. This system is to incorporate techniques of automatic document classification for a large document collection in an interactive environment. Following a review of the system design, the implementation of the…

The General Information Processing System (GIPSY) of the Merrick Computing Center is a user dominated system. It can be used to manipulate and retrieve both numeric and alphabetic material. One of its most interesting uses is in the selection and retrieval of records and documents or of selected entries from records and documents. It has been used…

Analyzes recent developments in the problem of processing queries expressed as Boolean expressions, shows that the concept of threshold values resolves the problems inherent with relevance weights, and explores possible evaluation mechanisms for document retrieval based on fuzzy set theory. Sixteen references are listed. (FM)

Describes an online library catalog in which bibliographic references have been compiled by simply transcribing the descriptive data found on the title page and elsewhere on the documents, and discusses the wider implications of the use of natural language descriptions without modifications. Eleven references are listed. (FM)

Explores what might be the optimal query expansion (QE) processing method with semantically coded thesauri. Examines whether QE via semantically coded thesauri terminology is more effective in the "automatic" or "interactive" processing environment. Results revealed that synonyms and partial synonyms and narrower terms are…

The three documents contained in this report describe an interactive retrieval language implemented for the IBM 360/67 of the Campus Faculty at Stanford University, between October 1969 and May 1970. The three reports are: (1) DIRAC--An Interactive Retrieval Language with Computational Interface, (2) DIRAC--An Overview of an Interactive Retrieval…

WISE is an on-line interactive information retrieval system designed to operate on keyword oriented data bases. The system was designed particularly with bibliographic data bases in mind, but it is potentially useful for any keyword oriented data base. The WISE user searches a data base by entering and combining keywords that are appropriate to…

In terms of examples drawn from clinical and research data files, one of the objectives of this study is to illustrate several factors that have combined to delay the implementation of medical data bases. A primary factor has been inherent in the design of computer software. The languages currently on the market are procedural in nature: they…

This paper considers the processing of digital library queries, consisting of a text component and a structured component in distributed environments. The paper concentrates on the processing of the structured component of a distributed query. A method is proposed to identify the databases that are likely to be useful for processing any given…

The on-line serials control system in use at UCLA Biomedical Library utilizes and inverted file for its primary retrieval technique. A detailed profile of title structure and search scheme is given. The major determinants of the scheme are evaluated on a performance and cost basis. (5 references) (Author/KE)

Presents MARC database statistics for use in planning and processing files, selection of subsets, and estimating file growth rates. Statistics are provided on record length, field tag occurrence, data element length per field tag, and distribution of records by Dewey Decimal Division and Library of Congress class code. (Author/RAA)