The third in a series of five articles illustrates the need for a better understanding of the indexing function. (AB)

Describes the origin of the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors and how additions are made to his volume. (DE)

A study of the importance to the user of various characteristics in the printed subject indexes to abstract journals and published literature and the user's preference for the different formats available. (Author)

The author discusses information retrieval systems with particular emphasis on the assignment of descriptor terms. She first explains the method of determining terms by deriving key words from a title or abstract, a procedure that can often be carried out by a computer. After discussing the problems of derived indexing, the author explains the…

The International Bureau of Education's (IBE) thesaurus lists descriptors for retrieving information in the field of education from computerized data banks. The largest section is an alphabetical array of descriptors and identifiers, with French equivalents. These are cross-referenced with "use" and "use for" terms as well as…

Presents arguments supporting microcomputers as unprecedented tools for controlled vocabulary development and generation of references for small-scale indexing, illustrating the arguments through discussion of the experience of developing a controlled vocabulary for environmental studies. Some detailed aspects of system and program design are…

The nature of the affinitive relationships expressed through thesaural related terms were studied in ten thesauri and analyzed in terms of Farradane's relational indexing operators and the four fundamental categories of concepts derived by the Classification Research Group in England. (Author/LS)

The Tennessee Research Coordinating Unit (RCU) has implemented a computerized information retrieval system known as "Query," which allows for the retrieval of documents indexed in Research in Education (RIE), Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE), and Abstracts of Instructional and Research Materials (AIM/ARM). The document…

The thesaurus is divided into two parts. The first part lists descriptor terms under eight main areas of concern in foreign language instruction; the second lists terms alphabetically and includes "use" and "use for" notations. More that 500 descriptors are included. An introduction describes the work of the Information Center for Research in…

The language of library and information science is presented in a faceted library classification. To this vocabulary are added rules for combining terms into compound subjects; an overall linear order for all terms, elementary and compound; and a notation to maintain this order in a mechanical fashion. An extensive alphabetical index is included.…

Proposes that the major criteria for handling compound words should rest upon their orthography (physical form), lexicography (dictionary definition), and semantics, with special attention given to possible homographs. BS 5723 is criticized for failing to pay sufficient attention to the requirements of mechanized systems. Thirty-one references are…

The Uniterm system of coordinate indexing, developed by the Armed Services Technical Information Agency, provides a method for the organization, storage, and retrieval of information. The contents of reports are analyzed, and terms are assigned to the documents. For each term there is a card upon which the accession number of documents assigned…

The major topics included in this paper are: thesaurus structure, later developments, functions of thesauri, keyword list generation, compatibility, and maintenance and updating. (NH)

In order to carry out its project for a mechanized documentation service based on a system of keyword coordination, European Atomic Energy Community's Centre for Information and Documentation was led to draw up an inventory of terminology in the nuclear field and maintain a tight control over it. A basic thesaurus of 1230 keywords was drawn up and…