Purpose: The paper aims to assess the utility of non-agriculture-specific information systems, databases, and respective controlled vocabularies (thesauri) in organising and retrieving agricultural information. The purpose is to identify thesaurus-linked tree structures, controlled subject headings/terms (heading words, descriptors), and principal…

The development of the INSPEC vocabulary system which comprises a unified indexing and classification scheme is described together with the reasons for its adoption. (Author)

A test was carried out to investigate the assumption that there is a significant level of redundancy between documents. The conclusions were that notional overlap exists, but there appear to be very few cases of extreme redundancy, and at the document level, there is little possibility of practical application. (Author)

This discussion of the general principles of structure and construction of numeric databases introduces the concept of data points, their relationship to each other, and their storage in a nonredundant way. The collection of numeric data and their integration into the database structure are explained. Eight references are cited. (EJS)

Describes work in progress at the Smithsonian Institution in developing a system to understand and articulate the information needed to support collection related functions. The discussion covers the data modeling methodology used and the advantages of this methodology in structuring museum collections information. (one reference) (CLB)

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…

The process of initiating and negotiating a literature search in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) data base is discussed in laymen's terms. The guide offers suggestions on choosing a data base, deciding whether to use computerized or manual retrieval, defining the search problem, and understanding the Boolean search strategy…

Sixth in a series of eight reports of a research study for the National Agricultural Library (NAL) on the effective utilization of bibliographic data bases in machine-readable form, this report deals with the query language, search strategy and related considerations for a particular information storage and retrieval system. One section of the…

Statistical clustering is critical in designing scalable image retrieval systems. This paper presents a scalable algorithm for indexing and retrieving images based on region segmentation. The method uses statistical clustering on region features and IRM (Integrated Region Matching), a measure developed to evaluate overall similarity between images…

This is the fifth in a series of eight reports of a research study for the National Agricultural Library (NAL) on the effective utilization of bibliographic data bases in machine readable form. NAL desires ultimately to develop techniques of interacting with other data bases so that queries put to NAL may be answered with documents or document…

This research project was motivated by results of earlier work (Katzer et al., 1982) on the overlap among document representations. In the earlier study, one representation used in the INSPEC database proved to perform unexpectedly well in comparison with other commonly used representations, such as controlled vocabulary or free-text terms from…

This report is in two parts; the first part deals with a construction of a data base for bibliometric studies. The second part provides a detailed account of the results of those studies. Needs for a data base, the search for a possible candidate, and the decision to build the Check List of Social Sciences Serials (CLOSSS) are explained in the…

Describes use of a database management system (dBASE II, produced by Ashton-Tate), noting best features and disadvantages. Highlights include data entry, multiple access points available, training requirements, use of dBASE for a bibliographic application, auxiliary software, and dBASE updates. Sample searches, auxiliary programs, and requirements…

This manual, intended for the librarian or information specialist beginning with online systems, introduces the National Agricultural Library's (NAL) Cataloging and Indexing System (CAIN) and presents the search techniques required for retrieving information on agriculture and its many related fields. The manual, which concentrates on the online…

Review of office filing facility filing and retrieval mechanisms for unstructured and mixed media information focuses on free text methods. Also discussed are the state of the art in handling voice and image data, problems with searching text surrogates to implement free text content retrieval, and work of Project Minstrel. (Author/MBR)