Discussion of information retrieval and the derivation of new knowledge from bibliographic databases focuses on medical journal literature. Topics discussed include the incomplete coverage of medical literature on databases; searching by free text or title words versus searching by assigned subject headings; and the implications of these factors…

Describes a pilot study in which a single database was constructed to provide access by both descriptors and cited references. For each query, two equivalent sets were retrieved and evaluated for relevance to the query. It is concluded that using both search methods can increase both recall and precision. (32 references) (CLB)