The American Institute of Physics is working toward the development of a national information system for physics, whose objective is the organization of the flow of physics information from the producers to the users. The complete physics information system has several constituent subsystems, among which are: one for the management of the flow of…

An invitation to participate in this panel discussion was sent to official representatives of organizations which had an expressed interest in information networks. Since some of the represented international bodies had started preliminary planning for network communication, the discussion was centered around systems design concepts. However, as…

The desirability of increasing the speed of informal communications of information among investigators in well-defined areas of scientific discipline has been well established. The purpose of this study was to develop more advanced media for this type of communication and to determine the overall effect on cost and efficiency on a selected area of…

The Design of Information Systems in the Social Sciences (DISISS) is a research project with the objective of carrying out research necessary for the effective design of information systems in the social sciences, whether by the creation of new systems or the modification of existing systems. This working paper explores the methods available for…

The purposes of this study are to identify and define viable remote browsing techniques and the requirements for an interactive medical information system that would permit the use of such techniques. The main emphasis is in the areas of: (1) remote viewing of page material; and (2) remote interrogation of fact banks with question-answering…

This study examined overlapping membership of voluntary associations as the basis of a statistical technique for analyzing community structure. An underlying assumption was that organizations select certain membership linkages in preference to others within a community. Thus one would expect to find points of integration and cleavage among…

Prepared specifically for the Planning Committee, the Board of Trustees and the administration and staff of the James Jerome Hill Reference Library, this report reiterates statements and suggestions made in previous reports, but the restatement places emphasis on the sharpening of the Trustees' understanding of the program's objectives. Topics…

Chapter I: "Background and Description of Regional Library Development in Ontario," aimed at placing the perspective of centralized processing within the framework of cooperative effort, presents some general discussion of these two concepts. The Ontario plan, and the relationship of the Midwestern Regional Library System and its…

Projections about the growth of the telephone industry from 1970-1985 were made from forecasts of five panels of experts, in five areas: (1) the regulatory environment; (2) changes in U.S. society; (3) existing networks and services; (4) future networks and services; (5) future characteristics of the labor force and employee-management relations.…

The member libraries of the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC) adopted standards for input cataloging in order to improve the technical processes while still keeping costs at a minimum. Increased compatibility of records input by different libraries so that records input by one could be more readily used by others was the final goal. It was…

Library users, resources and staff members of the Madison, Wisconsin area (Dane County) libraries were surveyed to answer these four questions: (1) What demands for informational services are being made on local libraries that they are unable to meet, or are met with difficulty?; (2) What information resources are held and what is their…

A survey of 105 Kentucky and Indiana hospitals was made to determine the extent and quality of library service available under the auspices of the Ohio Valley Regional Medical Program. Summary data on the 60 hospitals with libraries are reported here with the objective of examining the capability of these institutions as a group to participate in…

A model of a generalized information storage and retrieval system is proposed. The model consists of six subsystems (or blocks): logical processor, selector, descriptor, file, locator, document file, and analysis block. These subsystems function in a partial environment defined by the user and data blocks. Proceeding from a verbal description, a…

The Worcester Area Cooperating Libraries is a system composed of public, academic and special libraries. In fiscal 1970-71, an expanded interlibrary loan service utilizing a daily shuttle between the participating libraries was implemented. This report describes and analyzes the interlibrary shuttle service, and presents an analysis of the…

The need for commercial communications is expected to grow substantially in the future. Whether telephone companies meet most of this demand seems to depend on three major factors: regulatory actions, the development of alternative technology, and the telephone companies themselves. The Federal Communications Commission is considering requiring…