book reviews
Research and development in
information retrieval. Proceedings ofthird joint BCS and ACM Symposium
C J van Rijsbergen (E d.)

Cambridge University Press, UK(1984) £25.00 ($49.50) ISBN 0 521-26865-6,433pp
The 28 papers of this symposium(held at King’s College, Cambridge,
U K on 2-6 July 1984) consist mainlyof interim reports of projects linked tothe classical IR model of document
retrieval from mechanized databases
operating on surrogate groups ofindex terms. Although that model has
now been worked out to the point at
which it would be difficult to justify
further refinement in operational
systems by practical results, the urge
to seek further refinement of thisclassical model remains strong.
There is also scope for tidying
up aspects of its probabilistic theory
in the search for logical complete­ness. Meanwhile, however, advanceson other research fronts — indatabase management systems, inexpert and office systems — makepossible new approaches to the model
which also steadily widen the con­notation of the ‘IR ’.
The papers are published in theorder in which they were presented
to make an interesting mix for the
symposium. For review purposes,
they are grouped differently todisplay the trends they reveal moreclearly.
Three papers critically examine
aspects of the theory of the classicalmodel. Wong and Raghaven (Regina)
explore and clarify ambiguities in thevector space models; Peter Bollman(Technical University of Berlin)
continues his meticulous critique,establishing two axioms which point
to the need to define the homogeneityof a document collection; and Don
Kraft and Duncan Buell (Baton
Rouge) briefly review the stopping
rules and outline a model from which
they hope to derive retrieval perfor­

180

mance measures related to thestopping point.
A larger set of papers considers
various ways of improving IR perfor­
mance. Bruce Croft and Roger
Thompson (Amherst) explore thepossibilitiesofanadaptivemechanism which selects the searchstrategy most appropriate to different
kinds of user queries. K L Kwok
(CUNY, Flushing) proposes toincorporate terms from the titles of
documents cited by those documents
regarded by the user to be most
relevant. Metzler et al. (Pittsburgh)
invoke the linguistic theory of
Moulton and Robinson to enhance
relations between keywords. Frakes(AT & T, Lincroft, NJ) describes atechnique applied to CATALOGUE
for truncating keywords automati­
cally, while Niedermair et al.
(Munich) outline the use of MARS,an aid designed to find previously
unkownterms
morphologicallyrelated to the users’ search terms.
Robert Korfhage (Dallas) presents amethod of ‘personalizing’ queries bymeans of user profiles.
Database management systems
and document retrieval systems begin
to interact. Schek (Darmstadt) con­siders how best to put an IR system‘on top’ of a DBMS. Jean Tague(W Ontario) considers the limitations
forbibliographic
retrievalofrelational models developed in
DBMS and extends Zaniolo’s
semantic model; then, by adapting
the W emier/Orr diagram fromsystem theory, she establishes a nota­tion enabling her to set out a logicalmodel for IR in a wider but inclusive
sense. Azmoodeh (Essex), Lavington
and Standring (Manchester) explain
how the Semantic Binary Relation­
ship Model can be linked withsemantic networks and logical rules.
Omiecinski
andScheurrtiann(Northwestern) describe a method ofrecord clustering and file reorganiza­tion in response to user enquiries
which minimizes the number of pages
accessed per query. Hollaar (Utah)
updates previous reports on themessage-based architecture of a textretrieval system designed to operatewith very large bodies of text. Estelland Smith (Queen’s Belfast) study
the costs and response times of
distributing an IR system between amainframe and a microcomputer
acting as an intelligent terminal.
Automatic text analysis becomesincreasingly relevant. The peculiarly
difficult problem of searching a
database of the texts of mathematical
papers (some of 100 journal pages ormore) densely packed with methods
and theorems on the theory of finitegroups has been tackled by Iofinova
and Komissartschik (Institute for
System Studies, Moscow) who
describe their interactive search
process which seeks elements whichare ‘near’to that expressed by the user.
Hahn and Reimer (Konstanz) use
programs that produce ‘text graphs’of various depths as the basis for
retrieval. Euhr and Knorz (Darmstadt)
describe their program A IR applied
to the automatic indexing of papers
in physics and display the recall/precision graphs obtained in tests.
Kevin Jones and Colin Bell
(Malaysian Rubber Producers’ RA,
Hertford) summarize their experienceof ten years’ work with their program
MORPHS on documents of interest
to the rubber industry.
Expert systems are also related to
the IR model. French views arepresented by Defude (IM AG) who
considers how to accommodate
thesauri within the architecture ofan expert system and by Zarri(CNRS) who describes the inferencetechniques of RESEDA, an experi­mental database concerned withpersonages in the history of France.
Office systems become more
complex. The most ambitious project,
part of an ESPRIT study, outlinedby Christodoulakis (Toronto) is asystem in which the messages may
consist of any mix of attributes, text,
images and voice; it therefore
demands a formidable array of

information technology

book reviews
hardware and software and is being
developed to provide many kinds ofquery response in a dynamic officeenvironment. A second paper related
to an ESPRIT study of mixed mode
message filing systems is presented
by Rabitti (CNDR, Pisa) and Zizka(Brno) who describe experimental
tests on various access techniques.
Laender and Stocker (East Anglia)
describe a flexible use of ‘forms’,
applied to a database of gramophonerecordings, in which the ‘form con­tent’ specified by the user becomes
the basis for searching thedatabase.
Four papers about more general
topics were presented. John Tolle(OCLC) has several extensive trans­
action log tapes from operational IR
systems and is developing methods ofanalysing the abundant data thus
acquired. D ata from the NLM
covered eight weeks and included
440 000 transactions, 11 000 user
sessions and 1 600 hours of systemuse; but that is only one of the several
systems providing log tapes. So Tolle
has the complex problem of sortingout all this data to reveal in detail how
systems are actually searched.
Barbara Allen (Leeds Polytechnic)
assesses the requirements of open
learning in educational contexts andconsiders the kinds of expert systemneeded. Zeng Minzu (Beijing Docu­ment Service) describes the setting up
of modem information systems in acountry that still lacks the infrastruc­ture of communication systems andprofessional expertise needed for an
integrated Chinese network. He
wisely concludes (as Confucius might
have done) that: ‘Modernization is
not purchasable. No hard work, nosystem available.’W S Cooper (Berkeley) adumbrates
two major areas of study: a generallogico-linguistic theory to support
the performance of inference-making
systems within natural language, andthe concept of ‘information states’ ofan organism or machine and thechanges of such states when new
information is acquired. He points tothe need for work to be done in boththese areas.
The long, long history of logic —from Aristotle through Leibniz,

vol 3 no 3 1984

Boole, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein,
Camap and Bar-Hillel to Quine et al.
— suggests that the natural languages
are not wholly reducible to logicalforms, and necessarily so. Advancesin this direction, such as thosereported at this symposium, might
therefore proceed modest step bymodest step towards increasing
sophistication. These steps will beapplied to databases operating withlanguages which, wittingly or not,consist of some controlled subset of
natural language and which suffice
for specific purposes. There seems to
be no end to this step-by-step
approach. It may be logically untidy,
but it is both necessary and more
psychologically satisfying than the
more direct approach that Cooper
appears to advocate.
But logical inferences are not all
we need. Mechanized systems will, indue course, be expected to point tological contradictions or to gaps in theinformation states of their databases,
to suggest logically incomplete but
plausible ideas — hypotheses — aswell as firm conclusions. In short, thisreviewer gives priority to Cooper’s
suggested study of information states
because that study holds the key toour understanding of all the inform­
ation processes with which the studyof IR is concerned.
The editor and publishers are to becommended for the speed of publica­tion of the proceedings, although it isregrettable that discussions evokedby its stimulating papers were notalso reported. But the trend of IR
research is evident: the developmentof IR is fast breaking free from theconfining bounds of the classicalmodel.

B C Brookes
London, UK

An introduction to computer-based
library systems (2nd Ed)
L A Tedd

Wiley Heyden, UK (1984)£10.50, ISBN 0471 26285 4,262 p p
The publication of the second editionof Lucy Tedd’s textbook is long
overdue and will be welcomed by
students, teachers and practitionersof librarianship and information
science. Because of its emphasis on
state-of-the-art technology and theinclusion of details of specificsystems, the first edition (1977) had
dated very rapidly.
In the new edition, the generalorganization of the previous edition ispreserved. The first chapter gives an
overview of computer-based librarysystems, the next four chapters deal
with hardware, software, storing andretrieving information and tele­communications, the sixth covers
general aspects of setting up
computer-based systems in libraries,
and the remaining five treat thecomputerization of specific librarysystems e.g. circulation control sys­tems. The chapter dealing with tele­communications is an appropriate
indication of the growth of this area
since 1977. Other changes from thefirst edition include the merging ofseparate chapters on acquisitions andcataloguing systems, which reflects
current practice, while information
retrieval systems have been subdivided
into two chapters, local and external.
Surprisingly, videotex systems are
not treated under external information
services but appear in the chapter ontelecommunications aspects.
When one examines the coverageof this textbook, the emphasis isheavily on current practice in library/
information centres. In reviewing any
book of this type, it is tempting to
identify specific software packages
or systems that should have been
included, but there are no glaringomissions that this reviewer could
identify. However, the topic ofintegrated systems is very poorly

181book reviews
treated at both the conceptual andthe practical level. A mention in
the preface and cross-references atcertain points in the text are insuffi­
cient for this important topic.
The author has succeededadmirably in drawing together acoherent text on computer tech­
nology and its application to libraries.
Her ability to express technicalconcepts simply and concisely and to
extract the significant points from amyriad of details make this a very
valuable textbook. The level is suchthat it is suitable for readers without
a technical background, be they
undergraduate or postgraduate
students or practitioners. But theauthor’s desire to produce anintroductory text may also have someundesirable effects. A textbook, even
if its primary aim is to be an intro­
duction, should wet the reader’sappetite for more. Thus, in thisreviewer’s opinion, the lack ofconcern with fiiture trends is a fault of
this otherwise excellent volume. A
few lines on electronic publishing in
the introductory chapter and a sec­tion entitled ‘Related Technological
Developments’ in the chapter ontelecommunications are the closest
the author comes to looking to the
future. The latter section outlines theoperation of electronic mail systems,
telefacsimile, electronic document
delivery projects and electronic
network communication projects i.e.
computer conferencing. This two-page
unit is difficult to find because of its
inclusion in the telecommunications
chapter and because it is poorly
indexed.
Another deficiency in the text isthe lack of an overall analysis of theimplications of current and futuretechnological developments forlibraries and information centres. For
example, the reader can find out whata databank is and obtain details ofsome search services of this type but
he/she gets no indication of therelative importance of this type of
information source in the future. The
same criticism would apply to thehandling of many other current
developments e.g. videotex systems,
automatic document ordering, elec­
tronic journals, etc. The emphasis on

182‘documentary’ records also resultsfrom the concern with current prac­
tice rather than future trends.
While the text of the chapters
dealing with specific systems gives
wide international coverage, thedetailed examples of systems at theend of each chapter are all U K based.
Although Ms Tedd justifies thisemphasis in the preface, one cannot
share her confidence that this feature
will not detract from the international
applicability for the text. In particular,
it must be a disadvantage for the US
and Australian markets. The value of
including these examples, which arerather detailed descriptions ofoperational systems, is doubtful. It is
unnecessary to give such detail in a
textbook, when readers have accessto reports of these (or similar)
systems in the primary literature.
This emphasis on details of present
systems rather than principles orobjectives will also result in the work
dating more rapidly.
The very useful glossary of terms
and the list of acronyms have been
updated since the first edition. The
glossary, apart from its value as partof the text, is a valuable reference
item in its own right.
The index is rather patchy withsome glaring omissions. There are no
entries for terms such as ‘opticaldiscs’ or ‘intelligent terminals1. On
examination of the previously men­tioned section on Related Techno­
logical Developments, one finds
entries in the index for ‘facsimiletransmission’ and ‘electronic journal’
but none for the concepts of ‘elec­
tronic mail’ or ‘electronic/automatic
document delivery’. Although all four
projects are referred to, Blend andHermes appear in the index while
Adonis and Artemis do not. Of amore serious nature is an error inpage numbering of index entries forpages 219-237, where each entry
appears to read three pages too
high.
Overall, the second edition of thistextbook by Lucy Tedd is anextremely useful publication, whichis technically sound and gives aperceptive and lucid analysis ofcurrent developments in library
automation. But, like the first edition,
it will date very rapidly. It is alsoof value to members of the libraryand information profession, who needan introduction to the basics ofcomputerization or an overview ofcurrent practice, particularly if they
are interested in UK examples.
Related professionals (computerscientists, systems analysts, etc.)
interested in library systems would
also find this item a useful addition
to their reference bookshelf. The
potential market should justify the
publication of a paperback edition,
which would certainly increase sales
to the student population.

M BurkeDepartment o f Library &Information Studies
University College Dublin, Eire

Computerized literature searching:research strategies and databases
L G ilreath

Boulder: Westview Press, USA(1984) £20.25, ISB N 0-86531526-4, 177pp
This is a well written and interesting
introduction to making the best use of
online bibliographic databases. It is
suitable for use by ‘end-users’
without formal library training,although librarians and information
officers new to online services may

well find it useful as a starting point
before going on to the more exhaus­
tive sources.
Two preliminary chapters provide
a brief introduction to the way inwhich online systems work and therole of the search intermediary.
(Gilreath comes down fairly firmly
on the need for ‘search analyst’ help
during the preparation and perfor­
mance of a search.) The remaining

information technology

book reviews
six chapters develop ‘for the end
users of information’ an accountof six subject areas: agriculturaland life sciences; social sciencesand education; physical sciences andengineering; business literature;humanities, arts and architecture;and legal research. In each case, themain databases in the field are listed,with notes on their contents andsometimes on their idiosyncracies,
and the reader is introduced to theindexing practices that have evolved
for each field.
The approach is very practical,
and examples are provided illustrating
the recommended strategies. For
instance, the role of CAS Registry
Numbers in making the complexity ofchemical naming less intractable isillustrated by a Chemical Abstracts
citation and then discussed in thecontext of patents and toxicology
literature. The problems of geographic
location are recognized and sugges­
tions made for developing effective
search profiles. Terminological drift
in the social sciences and difficulties
in the searching of value ranges inphysics are clarified, and the ways inwhich searches may fail to deliver all
relevant material are explained.
The use of thesauri in developing
search strategies is taken up in each of
the subject chapters, and the principal
systems are described. Printed sources
such as Enzyme Nomenclature are
noted as well as the M eSH group of
search aids, and, in general, a com­bined approach using both online andprinted sources is encouraged.
The author is head of theAutomated Information Retrieval
Service for Texas A & M University
Library. His practical experience of
searching in a wide range of sources isevident throughout the book, and not
only in the chapters on life scienceswhere he is a specialist. On the other
hand, the choice of examples and thelists of relevant databases do show
some bias towards North Americanmaterial, and will need to be supple­
mented for European readers. (To be
fair, BHRA Fluid Engineering,
Chemical Engineering Abstracts,
GEOARCHIVE, INSPEC, PIRA
Abstracts and RAPRA are cited,even if Eurolex and World Reportervol 3 no 3 1984

are missing.) Online bibliographic
databases by Hall and Brown (Aslib,1983) is much more detailed, andgives better coverage of European
material; Gilreath is perhaps comple­
mentary in providing ‘how to go about
it’ guidance.
At half the price, this would havebeen a good book to lend prospective
users of online services before they
approached the library to run asearch; at £20.25 one copy chained
to the reference desk seems more
likely.

J H Ashford
Maidenhead, UK

Microelectronics and office jobs:
the impact of the chip on women’s
employment
D W erneke

International Labour Office,
Switzerland (1983) ISB N 92 2
103278, 102 pp
Recent advances in microelectronics
technology have led to much fasterand more powerful computing equip­
ment being available at substantiallylower costs than in the past. Much ofthis equipment is being designed for
office work and, since the majority ofoffice workers are women, the effectsof the technology will be seen mostclearly in women’s employment. A
World Employment Programme pro­
ject, sponsored by the International
Labour Organization, looked into
this subject, and this book is a presen­tation of their findings. The object of
the study was ‘to provide an overview
of the issues and an analytical surveyof the recent literature on the subject;
in so doing, it is hoped that in-depth
and penetrating work on the subject
will be forthcoming’.
The author begins by describing
the items of office equipment thathave been developed from the advan­
ces in microelectronics. Word pro­
cessors, facsimile equipment, opticalcharacter recognition equipment,
computer output microfilm, mini­computers and the integrated elec­
tronic office are all described at thefirst chapter.
The book then goes on to discuss
the influence that technical changes
in the past have had on employment
and contrasts this with the current
economic situation. The likely effects

on female workers of a rapidly
increasing spread of new technology
into the office are also discussed.
The chapter on ‘Technical change
and labour displacement: North
American experience’ summarizes
the results of detailed sudies in theUSA
andCanada.
Banking,
insurance and general office work
have been studied, with the general
conclusion that the growth rate ofclerical staff has been slower than thebusiness growth rate. In most cases,
improved information services havebeen achieved also.
The North American situation is
also reviewed in the chapter on ‘New
technology and work content andorganisation in North America’,
which also discusses job satisfaction,
the changed working environmentand health and safety considera­
tions.
The European situation isreviewed in a chapter looking at the‘OECD experience’, and the conclu­
sion is that the pattern is similar to the
US experience, but that the rate isslower.
This book provides a very usefulsummary of the effect of the chip on
women’s employment at the present
time. The work is well supported bydetailed references at the end of eachchapter, and the stated objective of
the study appears to have been wellsatisfied.

C L S Stainton
School o f Studies in Computing
University o f Bradford, UK

183

took reviews
The application of mini- andmicrocomputers in information,
documentation and libraries
C K aren and L Perlm utter (Eds)

North Holland, The Netherlands(1983) D FI 200/S 85, ISB N
0-444-86767-8, 801 pp
Information processing and manage­
ment has been undergoing a continu­
ing evolution along several paths overthe past ten years, particularly withthe advent of mini- and microcom­
puters. Also, the availability ofvarious software packages has given
a new dimension to the problems of
information storage and retrieval andhas obviated the need for that brandof professionals, ‘the information
providers’, who provide metainfor­
mation rather than solutions to
individual problems.
There is an ever-increasing needfor educational and awareness cour­ses, as well as suitable publications to
help individuals understand thevarious approaches to intelligent
information handling and documen­
tation. W hat is desperately needed issuitable ‘overview’ material to help
the person who is planning a new sys­
tem by means of existing software, orby in-house programming. This bookfulfils this need to a large extent andalso offers information on what has
been achieved in practice by various
practitioners and institutes oflearning.
At first sight, the book gives theimpression of being just anotherpublication resulting from an inter­national gathering of sun-loving
academics. It does, in fact, present
the proceedings of a conference held
in Israel in March 1983, but this bookis exceptional in that it placesemphasis on practical approaches tothe subject concerned. It is also
unusually uniform in its presentation(this is not always the case with con­ference proceedings) and is readable,
since most of the papers are short andvery synoptic, considering the com­184

plexity of the problems and the solu­
tions they present.
The need for controlled change inlibraries and information organiza­
tions is greater than ever before. The
individuals that have been charged
with providing access to printed infor­
mation and knowledge must adapt toproviding access to electronic media
or they will be replaced as sources of
information. Change to electronic
formats will provide increasingly
convenient, rapid, rich and costeffective access to information. The
model for the library of the future
must therefore be committed to twobasic principles: (a) the widest poss­ible access to information, and (b) theuse of computers to increase andmanage information resources.
The problem is not so much tocapture and store knowledge as tomanipulate it to satisfy specific user
requests. To be able to maintainintelligent systems, it is necessary toadopt data structures which can betraversed as and when required in theminimum possible time. The larger
the database, the more crucial the
choice of the structure will be and themore machine resources it will
require. Although the title of thisbook suggests that the work is par­ticularly relevant to micro- andminicomputers, most of the problems
and solutions presented are equallyapplicable to large mainframes. What
does not come out clearly is material
on documentation and its relationshipto the actual information service
environment.
There are over 80 papers, which
present work on the characteristics ofinformation systems, data manage­
ment, text acquisition and retrieval,relational database systems, index­
ing, archiving, language translation,library systems, hardware charac­
teristics and others. As is the casewith most conference proceedings,
the papers include substantial dupli­
cate material, particularly when eachis put into its right perspective, andintroductions to the concepts andmethodologies involved. With such amultiplicity of topics as well as sub­stantial overlap among them, it isvery difficult to establish appropriatesessions or headings for classifica­tion. The editors have however
managed to group them under 16
appropriate headings:• hardware and peripherals,• description of existing systems,• application software and require­ments (sessions 3 & 10),• minis and micros for library andinformation science education,• applications in chemistry; graphic
retrieval systems,• improving man-machine interac­tion,• applications in agricultural lib­raries and information centres,• applications in education,• problems of developing countries,• applications in libraries and infor­
mation centres; general,• system design considerations,• applications in libraries and infor­
mation centres; technical process­ing,• minis and micros for online
searching,• applications in numerical and fac­
tual information,• networking aspects of information
services and libraries.
There is such a wealth of material on
so many different aspects of informa­tion handling that the reader may find
it difficult to trace specialized infor­
mation, particularly as the index pro­vided is not adequate and does not dojustice to the book. Also, crossreferencing proves very difficult as aresult of this.
In conclusion, the book will be ofgreat help to all concerned with theissues it tackles, and this includes lib­rarians, information system designers
and students at both undergraduate
and postgraduate levels.

E J Yannakoudakis
Computer Centre
University o f Bradford
UK

information technology

calendar
Date

Title

Organizers

Place

5-7
March

Hardware andSoftware
Components andArchitectures forthe 5th Generation

AFCET, 156 Boulevard Pereire,
F .75017 Paris, France. Tel:
(1) 766 24 19, Telex: 290 163
Code 235

Paris,
France

18-20
March

Computer Assisted
Information Retrieval

Contact: E Chouraqui, C.I.D.,
36 bis, rue Ballu, 75009 Paris,
FranceGrenoble,
France

25-27
March

Fourth Symposiumon Principles of
Database Systems

Contact: S J Ginsburg, Dept, ofComputer Science, University ofSouthern California, University
Park, Los Angeles, CA 900890782, USA, Tel: (213) 743 5501

Portland, OR
USA

26-28
March

Eighth Information
Technology and
Office Automation
Exhibition

BED Exhibitions Ltd, 44
Wallington Square, Wallington,
Surrey SM8 8RG, UK. Tel:
01-647 1001, Telex: 893069
BEDATA

London,
UK

16-18
April

Informatics 8:Intelligent
Knowledge Based
Systems

Oxford,Contact: S Jespersen, Manager,
UK
Professional Development Group,
Aslib, 3 Belgrave Square, London
SW1X 8PL, UK. Tel: 01 235 5050,
Telex: 23667

23-25
April

Communications —LondonContact: T Brandon or P Mead,
Communications — London,Industrial and Trade Fairs Ltd.,
Radcliffe House, Blenheim Court,
Solihull, West Midlands B91 2BG,
UK. Tel: 021-705-6707, Telex:
33707322-24
MayInternational
Conference onFoundations of
D ata Organization

Contact Prof Yahiko Kambayashi, Kyoto,Japan
Dept of Information Science,
Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606
Japan. Tel: 75-751-2111 Ext. 5382

28-31
May

ACM SIGMOD:
International
Conference on
Management of Data

Contact: S Navathe, Computerand Information Sciences Dept.,
512 Weil Hall, University of
Florida, Gainesville, F L 32611,
USA. Tel: (904) 392 7440

Austin, TX
USA

5-7
June

ACM SIGIR
Conference on
Research andDevelopment inInformation Retrieval

Contact: Prof. V Raghaven, Dept,of Computer Science, Universityof Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan
S4S OA2, Canada

Montreal,
Canada21-23
AugustEleventh International Contact: A Pirotte, Philips
Research Laboratory, 2 Avenue
Conference on
Very Large
Van Becelaere, 1170 Brussels,
Belgium or Y Vassiliou, New
Databases
York University, Graduate Schoolof Business Administration,
100 Trinity Place, New York,NY 10006, USA

Stockholm,
Sweden2-5 .
September

HCC 3, Third
Conference on
Human Choice& Computers

Contact: Sven Jonasson, HCC 3,
Local Conference Chairman,
Swedish Society for Information
Processing, Rindogatan 8, S-11536
Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm,
SwedenAuthoritative national reports on emerging national
policy and social impacts of computers

15-18
September

IRFIS 6 Intelligent
Contact: Prof. A Serrai, Chair,
Information Systems IRFIS 6 Organizing Committee,
for the Information
Via Stazione S Pietro, 22,Society00165 Rome, Italy

Frascati,
ItalyIntelligent systems in information retrieval,human/computer interface

London,UK

Other details

Includes automatic text analysis, pattern recognition,
intelligent front ends, natural language processing,
retrieval algorithms and integration of IR systems

Exhibition and conference covering electronic
communications, IT equipment, business services

INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING RESEARCH CENTRE
If you are involved in publishing and distributing
inform ation you have probably considered som eform of electronic publishing.

This is w hy nearly 60 of the m ajor com panies^worldwide have joined the IEPRC.

jj• You m ay have tried a few
alternatives already• You m ay have found it does just
w hat you w ant

Activities are governed by the m em bers and are(directly related to their needs. Sharing the costs of.
solving com m on problem s and sharing the, experiences of people in sim ilar situations makes
sound com m ercial sense.

I

j

|

1

• You m ay have found it cost you :a lot of m oney*
• You m ay have found that it is a lot m ore difficult
to m atch m arkets and technologies than
anticipated;'I• You m ay not have tried it at allj• You w ill have realised that there is a lot of
potential, and a lot of problem s

j

t

|

I Recent and Current Activities: Study tour to Japan! Conferences
Technical, market and economic
scenarios for electronic publishing“ Study tour to USA
Regular bulletin on electronic publishing—
EPjournal
Electronic network for rapid and informalinterchange between members
Electronic Publishing Abstracts

The International Electronic Publishing Research Centre is [a non-profit institute dedicated to applying electronic technologies tothe publishing process. .
i
It provides an international forum for exchange of research ideas and inform ation between publishers, users and suppliers
concerned w ith electronic publishing.
1
If you are a publisher of any sort, or a system s supplier, service supplier, printing com pany, or research organisation, find out
m ore about the IEPRC and its w ork. For more details contact:

THE INTERNATIONAL ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING RESEARCH CENTRE :_____ ________________ —Pira House,-Randalls RoadrLeatherheadrSurfey"KT227RU, England
Telephone: Leatherhead (Code UK+44) (Code Area 0372) 376161 Telex: 929810— — -

APPLYINGTHE
FAMILY
More and m ore sy stem s with a 32-!bit architecture are hitting the m arket.
M any are based on the 6 8 0 0 0 fam ily of chips. For people con tem p lating or
already using such a system , Microprocessors and Microsystems presents
th e state of th e art in 6 8 0 0 0 -b a se d computing.!
A rticles cover applications, VMEbus, X enix and Pick, and M ODULA-2,
POPLOG and LISP. T he issu e also! includes a co m p lete introduction to the
6 8 0 2 0 processor.
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The collection is essen tia l reading for sy stem s designers, sy stem sengineers and OEMs.
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For fu rth er details please c o n ta c t\

Anne Browne, Editor, Butterworth Scientific Ltdl,
PO Box 63, Westbury House, Bury Street, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5BH, UK.
Telephone: (0483) 31261 Telex: 859556 SCITEC G