-56-

CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSIONSANDFURTHERRESEARCH

What we have described here are some results of a design study for what
we envisage as a much larger-scale project, to design, construct, implement and test an IR system based specifically and explicitly upon therecognition that the representation of information need is the central
problem of IR.

We view information needs as Anomalous States of Knowledge

and therefore aim to design an IR system in which ASKs have explicit
structural representations.

Our intention, then, is that the systemshould consist of a structural text-analysis program, a collection of
abstracts, a suite of retrieval algorithms and a mechanism whereby userand system interact.

The goals of the system can be described as follows:(a) To build a representation of the enquirer's state of knowledge inthe form of a network of associations between words.
(b) To examine this structure, and to interpret certain characteristicsof the network as potential anomalies in the state of knowledge.
(c) To search structured document descriptions with a view to resolving
the anomalies; i.e. to modify the searcher's network, using componentsof document structures, so that the identified characteristics disappear.
These system objectives will be achieved through dialogue with the user,
and the system would operate as shown in Fig. 1.
We consider that the design study has at least partly justified our initial
premises and assumptions in the following ways:
1. It is possible to obtain problem statements from IR system users
which can be used to derive adequate representations of ASKs;
2.

Abstracts appear to be sufficient document surrogates for information
representation in such a system;

3. Even though there are problems in our representations of need andinformation, they appear to have identifiable characteristics which
are potentially useful f~>r IR purposes.
Some aspects of our system have been rather less well studied than others,
and some significant problems remain to be resolved.

These include:

1. retrieval mechanisms
2.

refinement of the analytic procedures

3.

classification of ASKs

4.

the interactive environment

In the next stages of our long-term project, we intend to investigate
these problems in detail. The first point we hope to resolve by collec-

-57-

ting and analysing a number of problem statements and documents judged
relevant to them.

In this way we hope to find regular relationships

between ASK representations and representations of information whichhave been judged suitable for resolving those ASKs.

These data will

also be suitable for further refinement of our analysis, which we also
intend to augment by the addition of some simple linguistic analysis.
Classification of ASKs will be investigated both through these data,
and through a separate project which we hope will give us access to something
like 3000 problem statements, not necessarily with related documents.
This corpus will allow a much more reliable classification and investigation of the characteristics of ASKs than has heretofore been possible.
And we intend to investigate the interactive environment, and indeed
the proposed system as a system, by constructing a prototype and testing
it with both simulated

and a small number of natural users. We hope tobegin work on stage two of the project in Autumn, 1980.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank Mrs. Alina Vickery for her generous help in thisinvestigation, the British Library Research and Development Department
for supporting this project, both financially and morally, and especially
Ms. Helen Brooks, our collaborator, whose energy and insight wereinvaluable in this investigation.

-58-

REFERENCES
BELKIN, N.J.

1977 a. A concept of information for information
science. PhD Thesis, University of London, f977.

BELKIN, N.J. 1977 b. Internal knowledge and external information. In:
The Cognitive Viewpoint, proceedings of an international
workshop, Ghent, 1977. Ghent, The University of Ghent, 1977:
187-194.
BELKIN, N.J. in press. The problem of 'matching1 in information retrieval.
In: Harbo, 0. and Kajberg, L., eds. Theory and applications of
information research. Proceedings of the Second International
Research Forum on Information Science. London, Mansell, 1980.
BELKIN, N.J., BROOKS, H.M. & ODDY, R.N. 1979. Representation andclassification of anomalous states of knowledge and information
for use in interactive information retrieval. In: Human aspects
of information science. Proceedings of the Third International
Research Forum in Information Science. Oslo, Norwegian Library
School, 1979 (in press).
BELKIN, N.J. & ROBERTSON, S.E. 1976. Information science and the phenomenon of information. Journal of the ASIS, 27, 4(1976): 197-204.
BROOKS, H.

1978 The knowledge structures underlying information needs.
M.Sc. Thesis, Centre for Information Science, The City University,
London, 1978.

BROOKS, H. ODDY, R.N. & BELKIN, N.J. 1979 Representing and classifying
anomalous states of knowledge. Ppper presented at Informatics 5
Oxford, 1979. To be published by Aslib.
CHRISTOFIDES, N. 1975 Graph theory: an algorithmic approach. New
York and London, Academic Press, 1975.
CROFT, W.B. & VAN RIJSBERGEN, C.J. (unpublished) A single-link clustering
algorithm for use in experimental document retrieval systems.
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
HARBO, 0. & KAJBERG, L. in press. Theory and applications of information
research. Proceedings of the Second International Research
Forum in Information Science. London, Mansell, 1980.
KAHN, R.L. & CANNELL, C.F. 1957 The dynamics of interviewing. New
York, John Wiley, 1957.
KISS, G.

1975. An associative thesaurus of english: structural analysis
of a large relevance network. In: Kennedy, A. & Wilkes, A.,
eds. Long-term memory. New York and London, Academic Press,
1975. 103-121.

MANN, M.B.

1944 The quantitative differentiation of samples of written
language. Psychological Monographs, 56 (1944): 41-74.

MOSES, E.R. 1959 A study of word diversification.
26 (1959): 308-312.

Speech Monographs.

ODDY, R.N. 1975 Reference retrieval based on user-induced dynamic clustering.
PhD Thesis, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1975.

-59-

ODDY, R.N.

1977 a. Information retrieval through man-machine dialogue.
J. Docum., 33 (1977): 1-14.

ODDY, R.N.

1977 b. Retrieving references by dialogue rather than by query
formulation, J. Informatics, 1 (1977): 37-53.

PAYNE, S.L.

1951. The art of asking, questions,,.
Princeton University Press, 1951.

PORTNOY, S.

Princeton, N.J.,

1973. A comparison of oral and written verbal behaviour.
In: Studies in verbal behaviour, K. Salzinger and R.S. Feldman,
eds., New York, Pergamon, 1973: 95-151.

ROBERTSON, S.E. 1979 Indexing theory and retrieval effectiveness.
Drexel Library Quarterly, 14, 2 (1979): 40-56.
ROBERTSON, S.E. and BELKIN, N.J. 1978. Ranking in principle.
J. Docum., 34, 2 (1978): 93-100.
ROBERTSON, S.E. and SPARCK JONES, K. 1976. Relevance weighting ofsearch terms, JASIS 27 (1976): 129-146.
SPARCK JONES, K. and VAN RIJSBERGEN, C.J. 1975 Report on the need forand provision of an yideal1 information retrieval test collection.
Cambridge, University Computer Laboratory, December 1975.
TAYLOR, R.S. 1968. Question-negotiation and information seeking in libraries.
College and Research Libraries, 29 (1968): 178-194.
VAN RIJSBERGEN, C.J. 1971. An algorithm for information storage andretrieval. Computer Journal 14, 4 (1971): 402-412.
WERSIG, G.

1971. Information - Kommunikation - Dokumentation.
bei Munchen, Verlag Dokumentation, 1971.

Pullach-60-

APPENDIXA\

Evaluation package for problem statements

-61-

Dear
You may remember being interviewed by me about the research you were doing
and what sort of information you needed in connection with it, while having
an on-line search carried out at Central Information Services, Senate House,
The University of London. Thank you for your cooperation on this occasion.
May I ask you now to help with the second part of this project? This
involves you evaluating the results of our analysis of the interview. I
have enclosed a transcript of the interview and the analysis - which ispresented in two different formats.
About the analysis
This analysis is based on the idea of words as concepts and examines statistically the strength and pattern of relations between concepts (words)
present in a piece of text. The analysis will, eventually, be used toconstruct an internal machine representation based on the problem whichbrought the person to have an on-line search carried out. Here the analysis has been used to construct representations which are presented in
two formats. The two formats are not equivalent representations because
although they are formulated from the same initial data they represent
manipulations of different parts of the data.
What to do
What I would like you to do is to study the representations and complete
the attached questionnaires. Please do not spend more than thirty minutes
doing this - it is not necessary. Bear in mind that we would like you to
consider the representations, as far as possible, in terms of your problem
at the time of the interview, rather than at present.
Could you please return the completed questionnaire to me, as soon as
possible, in the stamped addressed envelope provided. (You may retain
everything else). Your responses will enable me to get some idea of how
useful the method of analysis and formats are as representations of yourinformation problem and ultimately may help improve information retrieval
services. I enclose a small fee of £2 to cover your expenses. If you
have any queries, please contact me or Dr. Belkin on 01-253 4399 ext 231.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Yours faithfully,

Helen Brooks

-62-

Format A.M. - Association Map
The association strengths for all the possible pairs of concepts present
in the interview were calculated. The higher the score, the more closely
two concepts are statistically associated and vice versa.
The 'map' is a graphical interpretation of the network produced by the 40
highest associations. On the map you will see that there are three typesof connecting line:
a)
b)
c)

A very thick line which represents a very high association strength;
A full thin line which represents medium association strengths;
A dashed line which represents weak associations.

For your convenience on the reverse of each complete 'map' the network has
been redrawn for each of these three levels of association, high (1),medium (2) and low (3), displaying only those concepts associated at thatparticular level.
PLEASE REMEMBER - the analysis is based on the idea of words as concepts.
Sometimes the actual words used in the interview were stemmed so as toproduce a concept e.g. the words USE, USER, USES, USED, USING, in theinterview would be stemmed to produce the concept f US f .
QUESTIONS(i) Looking at the general shape of the 'map1, do you think that the compactness and degree of inter-relation between the concepts (or lack of it),is an accurate representation of how these concepts were related in yourmind at the time of the interview?
YES/NO(ii) Looking at the relations between concepts, are there any which you
feel are too strongly associated?
YES/NOAny which you feel are too weakly associated?
YES/NO
If too strongly associated please give examples

If too weakly associated please give examples(iii) Looking at the concepts themselves, are there any concepts missing
from the 'map' which you feel are essential to your problem as it wasat the time of the interview;
YES/NO
Could you please give examples of these missed out concepts?

(i^y) Any other comments?

-63Format A.C. - Association Clusters
This format presents single link clustering of concepts occuring in theinterview. Concepts occuring in the same ? box f are strongly associatedwith each other. All the members of a particular 'box* are then strongly
associated with the members of the adjoining f box' at the next splitting
level. Thus in the example given below:AB

C D E FHIJ

A & B are highly associated, as are D, E & F with each other and H 4 I.
The group D E F is quite strongly associated with C and at a less stronglevel with H I . C is even less associated with H I than D E F and neither
are very highly associated with J. A B occurs at the same association level
as D E F and like D E F is fairly strongly associated with H I . It is not
however associated at all strongly with C.
The higher up the page the sets of concepts join up or the further they areseparated the less strongly they are associated. The splitting level isgiven by L followed by the association strength, low numbers representing
weak associations and vice versa.
In some cases lack of space has prevented all the concepts from being displayed and so only the more strongly associated are shown.
PLEASE REMEMBER - the analysis is based on the idea of words as concepts.
Sometimes, the actual words in the interview were stemmed so as to produce
a concept e.g. the words USE, USER, USES, USING, USED in the interview
would be stemmed to produce the concept f US f .
QUESTIONSi) Looking at each 'box', and remembering that all the concepts within it areclosely related, are any concepts grouped together which you feel should not
be so strongly related?
YES/NOAny which are not grouped together in a 'box' but which you feel shouldbe?
.
YES/NO
If too strongly related please give examples:

If not related strongly enough please give examples:ii) Looking at the association level at which the 'box' appears, do you
think that any of the concept; appear at too high a level of association?
YES/NO
If too high please give examples:
If too low please give examples:iii) Looking at the relationships between the 'boxes' are there any which
are not closely enough linked?^_ YES/NO
Any which are too closely linked?^_ YES/NO
If too close please give examples:
If too far apart please give examples:
Any other comments?

-64FINALLY
We would now like you to compare the formats.
please remember:

In making this comparison,- The formats do not display the same information since different parts of
the original data were manipulated in different ways to produce each.
- Eventually the analysis of such interviews will be used by a computer toproduce an internal machine representation of the user's problem as part ofan on-line search procedure, and will therefore not actually be seen by
the user.
Having studied both formats:i) Does one of them seem to you to be a better, more successful representation of your problem, as it was at the time of the interview, thanthe other?_
YES/NO
If you answered YES a) Which did you consider better?^b)Format A. C./Format A.M.

In what ways do you consider it better?

If you answered NO c) Was this because you think that on the whole both are successful
representations or that both are not successful representations of yourproblem, at the time of the interview?
SUCCESSFUL""NOT" SUCCESSFUL

Any additional comments?

-65-

APPENDIX B.

Evaluation package for abstracts

-66-

Dear
We are writing to ask your help in a research project which we areconducting with support from the British Library Research andDevelopment Department. This project is a Design Study for an interactive information retrieval system which would be based on structuralrepresentations of users1 information needs and of the information underlying texts. An important aspect of the Design Study is evaluation of
the appropriateness and accuracy of these structural representations.
As the texts for our study we have chosen a number of abstracts fromthe library and information science literature, including one of yours.
Enclosed you will find a copy of that abstract, a representation of it
based on our analytic methods, and a brief questionnaire about the
representation. We would very much appreciate your considering therepresentation and completing the questionnaire, which we think shouldtake no longer than one hour. As partial recompense for your trouble,
we also enclose a cheque for £5.00. Please try to return the questionnairein the enclosed stamped envelope as soon as possible, and in any event
before June 1st. All replies will be kept fully confidential. If you
wish to know the results of this work, please check the box at thebottom of the questionnaire.
Thanking you in advance for your cooperation, and looking forward to
your reply, we are,Sincerely yours

Dr. N.J. Belkin
Lecturer in Information Science
The City University

Dr. R.N. Oddy
Lecturer in Computing
University of Aston

-67STRUCTURALREPRESENTATIONQUESTIONNAIRE

About the analysis
This analysis is based on the idea of words as concepts, and examines
statistically the strength and pattern of relations between concepts ina piece of text. Although in the eventual system this analysis will be
used to construct an internal machine representation of the text, here
we have used it to construct a simplified network or 'association map1
representation which we hope is easier for humans to interpret•
About the representation
Association strengths for all the possible pairs of concepts in the abstract were calculated. The higher the score, the more closely the twoconcepts are statistically associated, and vice versa.
The 'association map' is a graphical interpretation of the data, produced
by using only a limited number of associations and by reducing the varietyof association strengths. On the 'map' you will see that there are twoor three types of connecting line:(a) a very thick line which represents a high association strength;(b) a full thin line which represents an intermediate association strength;(c) a dashed line which represents a weak association.
PLEASE REMEMBER the analysis is based on the idea of words as concepts.
To accomplish this some words have not been included in the analysis ( e.g.
function words such as A, OF, etc.) while others have been stemmed so as toproduce a single concept from several words. For instance, the words USE,
USER, USES, USED, USING in the text would be stemmed to produce the conceptfUS'. This stemming will result in some ambiguous nodes in the 'association
map'.
QUESTIONS (Please circle YES or NO for each)(i) Looking at the general shape of the 'map' do you think that the compactness and degree of inter-relation between the concepts (or lack of it) is
an accurate reflection of how these concepts were related in your mind at
the time you wrote the article?
YES/NO(ii) Looking at the relations between the concepts, are there any which
you feel are:too strongly associated?^__YES/NO
too weakly associated?
I_I_"™"" ~ ~ ~ I ™ ~"""I"IYES/N0
If too strongly associated, please give examples:
If too weakly associated, please give examples:(iii) Looking at the concepts themselves, are there any concepts missing
from the 'map' which you feel are essential to the article?
YES/NO
Could you please give examples of these missed-out concepts?
(iv) If you answered NO to question (i), do you think that the abstract
itself is an accurate representation of your article?^_YES/NO(v) Any other comments?

(Please continue overleaf if necessary)

Please tick here if you would like details of results to be sent to youLJ
Thank you for your cooperation.

-68-

APPENDIX C.

Summaries of problem statements.
(From Brooks, 1978)
1-27

Oral statements

30-37 Written statements

-69No. 1-Looking at discrimination and reversal learning inseverely subnormal children and also the development ofverbal mediation in ESN children.
-Wants papers that are to do with verbal regulation
behaviour in severely subnormals, but not necessarily
behaviour modification, e.g. papers on the use of conceptual
terms and the latest work on reversal learning.
-Previous studies on verbalisation have tended to treat
subjects as an homogenous group with respect to theirlanguage ability. Is looking at the ways in which testsof mediation can be developed and use these rather than treating
the subjects as an homogenous group.

No. 2-Interested in the sociological aspects of the effects
of art education.
-Looking at the way teachers operate in 4 schools in
Hounslow - 2 in the multiracial centre of Hounslow and
2 in the more English Vest Hounslow. Taken a junior and asecondary school in each area and looked at their art.
Talked to kids; interviewed parents; used a questionnaire.
- Wants to find out if any similar work done in Britain
or U.S.A. (or related research in marginal areas).
- Wants references which could support ( his theories /I
results he has obtained ) or which give something to react
to - for or against.

-70No.5-Problem is to do with extra corporal membrane oxygenation.
•i-Want to find out if there is some answer to theclotting problems involved.
-Want to find what effects the position of the cannulars
has on cardiac output*- So far unable to find any references to experiments
done cannulating various blood vessels in dogs and looking
at cardiac output but feels sure that such experiments
must have been carried out*

No, 4
-Looking at thecorrosion aspects of dental implants.

- Wants bibliographies on alloys, especially chromo-cobalt
dental markings on stainless steel and the corrosion ofthese in biological tissues*

No* 5- Had a case where a total hip replacement was carriedout two years ago but since then the patient has complainedof painful hips and so a revision of the orthoplasty was done*
This revealed lesion in the bone and the presence of a carcinoma- Heard of similar incidents* Wants to know if anything
written about possible connections / correlation between
the cement used in hip replacements and the secondarychange into malignant lesions*

-71No. 6-Looking at types of classroom environments and theirrelationship with student outcomes; particularly on student
self-concepts, anxiety and locus of control*- Wants to find out what research done in this area*-Wants empirical rather than philosophical or polemical
papers.

No. 7-About to start a project analysing membrane proteinsduring and after fusion in rat muscle skeletal cells*- Wants literature searched to see if there has been any
work done on various aspects of changes in membrane proteinsduring fusion.

/
No. 8- Trying to relate verbal comprehension to a number ofvariable e.g. intelligence, ego involvement, extroversion, anxiety etc.
-Wanted to check on what vork done in this field over thelast twelve months*

-72--Looking at factors affecting germination on theplant of wheat grains,-Wanted to find out what other people had done
and whether their results agreed with what had beenfound*- Bibliography wanted partly because writing athesis on the subject and partly because going togive a talk at an agricultural college* Interested
in agricultural aspects therefore* (which had not reallyconsidered up to then* )No* 10- Looking at the economics of fish farming , e*g*inland fisheries as a means of increasing GNP in third
world countries*- Vants to adopt a systems approach and look at a
community as a whole,e.g. waste from the scheme could
be fed to fish in the fish farms which in turn could be
fed to chickens or people* which produce waste which
could be recycled-Information wanted on the economics of fisheries
and inland fresh water fisheries in the UK or thethird world* .

-73No. 11»-Writing an introductory text; on growth infarm animals.
-Wants to check up on some facts and on some ideas
other people have suggested e.g* the influence oflight on growth) of gonadal hormones; of vegetarian
diet etc•

No, 12•Wants to investigate patterns of nonverbal
communication* •-Project arose from the observation that Swahili
speaking students used gestures when speaking Swahili
which they omitted when speaking English.
-Wants to establish that there are language-related
gestures and also investigate what the relationshipis between them and the language*

No* 13-Looking at the education voucher scheme just introducedin Ashford in the UK and comparing it with a scheme
run at Allan Rock in California*-Wants an up to date assessment of how the schemeat Allan Rock is going*

-74No* 14- Looking at computerised hospital drug information
systems.
- Wants two basic sorts of information. What systems
are in operation and what the doctors require fromthese systems, and secondly what sort of informationon the drugs themselves one would want to put onto
a drug information system*

No. 15- Evaluating Synopsis Journals* Looking at personal
opinions of authors, publishers and readers. Comparing
factors like delay times between synopsis and conventional
journals*- Knows that other evaluations have been carried out
and would like details*

No* 16-Looking at the information services of professional
institutes in business management* libraries,

publications, .eminars , conferences etc*
- Would like to know if similar evaluations doneof libraries or information services in this field*

-75No, 17-Wanted to do a comprehensive review of all the
literature concerned with lactose* Interested in its
chemistry and the synthesis of new derivatives
which might have biochemical applications*- Not interested in the biochemistry of
lactose.

No. 18-Looking at management information systems which are designed to give easy access to a wide variety
of information to people not experienced in information
handling.
-Not sure what information on such systems available.
Systems tend to be set up which are specific to aparticular firm and are therefore not well documented.

No. 19-Wants to keep up to date on parasitic diseases
because has t » write regular chapters for text bookson them.

No. 20-Looking at cancer of the prostate gland withrespect to the mechanism of action of androgens.
-The project is a joint clinical and scientificone. The basis for the clinical side is the case history-76(No. 20 cont.)of a patient with a terminal case in whom they havefound that giving a combination of androgens and anabolic
steroids seemed to produce some relief •-Wanted to check whether any drug treatments ofthis particular disease had been tried before, inanimal or human systems.

No, 21-Interested in the concept of plasticity
in recovery from brain damage when the brain is young.
Is writing a review article on this subject*- Wants data on hemispherectomy or hemidecortication
operations which hopes will support his theory ofplasticity.

No .22--Looking at motivation for change in patientsand how this affects their therapeutic outcome.
-Wants to know if similar work done , correlating
motivation of ^ationts with therapeutic results.

-77No. 23-Starting research on Echinococcosis / Hydatid
disease*-Particularly interested in reports of thedisease in libya. Thinks not much work done there*-Wants information on the epidemiology andmethods of diagnosis•

NO, 24-Doing research on the Bender-gestalt motor test*-Problem because different testers often get
different results-Wants to find reliability studies of interscorer
marking.
-Main interest is in the Koppits scoring system

No, 25-Looking at changes in children's use of strategies with
development. Trying to link this with the developmentof the frontal lobes,-Has heard of some work done by the Moscow Brain
Institute on the development of frontal lobes-Wants to find where the Institute got its datafrom and how the data might relate to what doing.

-78No. 26-Looking at the susceptibility of anophelinemosquitoes to insecticide; particularly with respect
to the genetics of insecticide resistance. Project
involves trying to establish an acceptable levelof low insecticide resistance in the mosquito
population.
-Also wants to do a biochemical studyof anopheline mosquitoes so

can try to develope

alternative methods of control*

No. 27- Doing research on detection of viruses inside
cells using gas liquid chromatography.
-Wants to find out if any similar work done.

-79No. 30
1t

I want a comprehensive search of recent literature
concerning the noise (i.e. ground vibration) which ispresent at any particular time within the earth. The
source of this seismic noise will be either human activities
or geological events depending on the locality considered.
I am interested in surveys of both types of noise.
Given that a certain source produces a certain
frequency spectrum of noise, the spectrum of the noise as
perceived at some distance from the source depends on
the transfer function of the intervening materials
i.e. the extent to which the different frequencies
are attenuated in travelling from source to receiver.
Hence papers concerning both the spectra of emitted
noise and the attenuation of such noise in the groundare of equal interest.

-30NO. 31
I am working in the fieidof general relativity,in particular on junction conditions for "boundaries
between coordinate patches on a manifold and how thesegive rise to so called "admissible" coordinate systems*
One problem,

for which I hope to find a solution interms of these coordinates , is that of a collapsingsphere of ideal fluid. An early formulation of junction
conditions (conditions do raccordrnent) was by A. Lichner-owioy in ?Theories relativistes de la gravitation atde l1electromagnetisme>f but since then many authors
have avoided them, as being too difficult to implement.

-81No. 32
Hearing tests are currently performed by a trained
operator using specialist equipment. I am interested in
the application of computers and micro-processors toautomate thismainly routine testing to enable larger

scale screening of hearing defects to be economically
performed.
Any literature relating to computer assisted or
automated hearing tests v/ould be useful and also theapplication of integrated circuits and circuit techniquesin this field v/ould be appropriate.
Papers in the field of general computer assisted
diagnosis are not required, only those relating tohearing or audiometry xjoulcl be useful.

-82Ho. 33
Chromobacterium Violaceum synthesise.s and excretes
a purple pigment (violacein) during growth as v.Tell as
cyanide. Violacein has a n t i b i o t i c p r o p e r t i e s . l t i s aderivativeof the amino-acid Tryptophan.

Our research i s to study the chemical and a n t i b i o t i cproperties of violacein, the growth conditions for i t s
synthesis , the relationship of i t s excretion to thatof cyanide, and the metabolic pathvray of formation.

-83No. 34
Interested in how "both microbial and higher eukaryotes
regulate nuclear RNA synthesis. I am not at this stage
concerned with mitochondrial or chloroplast RNA synthesis
nor in viral RNA synthesis, fcy principle interest is in
the coordination of transcription with translationthat is to say, I am interested in the regulation of
RNA synthesis as an aspect of growth control. This meansthat studies involving nutritional transitions, starvations, shifts-up etc. are of particular importance. More attention
should be paid to the synthesis of stable RNA species-rRNA and tRIIA, thexi to the synthesis of mRNA. Changes
in the synthesis of RNA in response to hormonal stimuli
are not of interest.

-84-

iThe object of t h i s study i s the biochemistry andphysi.ology of vascular v/ilt pathogens. The areas I willneed [to cover are for the pathogens

Verticillium albo-atrum

i Cerjatocystis ulmi, Pasarium (cubense, vasinfectum,ilycopersici, conglutinans, p i s i ) . I think t h i s willoover the main Fusarium wilt pathogens and t i t l e s
should include the terms v/ilt, wilt pathogens, wilt
diseases, wilt disease physiology or any combinationof these with the specific pathogen in question, orbanana w i l t , tomato v/ilt, cotton w i l t , Dutch elm diseaseor wilt involvement with other non-named hosts*

-85-

No, 36jl!he major aspect of my research work is concernedwith tlie functions of a hind-limb preparation., and I
shall tie using this preparation for the next few (atleast 3) years, I am interested

in obtaining referenceson this topic which covers the last six years or as far
back as your records will go, Ifm not sure how thiswill be formulated but basically the hind-limb is a
muscle preparation and is perfused, A wide variety ofanimals are used to study the functioning of this hind-limb or isolated limb preparation.

31

~86~
would like you to send for me any references

and aay articles which deal with bleeding in earlypregnancy and the effect on pregnancy, labour and thebaby. (Also if there is any relation of placental site
to the bleeding in early pregnancy.
I am doing a survey for the outcome of a patient who
had bleeding in early pregnancy.

-87-

APPENDIX D.

Association-map representations of problem statements.
1-27

Oral statements

30-37 Written statements

-88-

-89-

\

H

§

-90-

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APPENDIX F.

Abstracts

-1601Clustering Large Files of Documents Using the Single-Link Method

A method for clustering large files of documents using a clustering
algorithm which takes 0(n 2) operations (single-link) is proposed.
This method is tested on a file of 11,613 documents derived from an
operational system.

One property of the generated cluster hierarchy(hierarchy connection percentage) is examined and it indicates thatthe hierarchy is similar to those from other test collections. A
comparison of clustering times with other methods shows that large
files can be clustered by single-link in a time at least comparable
to various heuristic algorithms which theoretically require fewer
operations.

-161-

2
Theory of the Bradford Law

The Bradford law is explored theoretically by means of a very mixed
Poisson model which, it is claimed, elucidates the uncertainties
surrounding the law and its applications.

It is argued that Bradford

succeeded in formulating an empirical regularity which has pure andhybrid forms but that all the variants can be subsumed under a simple
logarithmic law which, for reasons explained, escapes exact expressionin conventional frequency terms.

The theoretical aspects discussed

include the hybridity of form, estimations, sampling problems,
the stability of ranks, homogeneity of data, and tests of significance.
Some numerical examples, some simulated and some drawn from social
contexts outside bibliography, are used both to illustrate theoreticalissues and also to indicate the wide generality of the Bradford law.
Possible applications and developments of the theory are indicated.

-1623Post-coordinate indexing and the prescribed classification andcataloguing curriculum in ALA-accredited library schools^- national case study together with proposals of general applicability

The introduction of post-coordinate indexing within the mandatory
education in subject headings, classification and cataloguing at
ALA-accredited library schools was slow to follow the adoption of
the technique in the library and information field.

Surveysconducted in 1956, 1961 and 1966 produced no positive evidence ofthe teaching of the method.

A recent study has found that rather

less than half the schools were teaching coordinate indexing andmost of these granted it only slight attention.

Those schools thatcovered coordinate indexing were far more likely than the averageschool to include UDC in the classification part of the curriculum.
Schools which featured modern integrated courses of wide scopenearly all taught coordinate indexing.

There are strong vocational

and academic arguments to warrant the incorporation of the modelin all required instruction in concept and term analysis and special
librarians can work towards this end through curricular consultation
with the schools.

-163-

4

The Probability Ranking Principle in IR

The principle that for optimal retrieval, documents should be ranked
in order of the probability of relevance or usefulness has beenbrought into question by Cooper.

It is shown that the principle canbe justified under certain assumptions, but that in cases where theseassumptions do not hold, the principle is not valid.

The major

problem appears to lie in the way the principle considers eachdocument independently of the rest.

The nature of the informationon the basis of which the system decides whether or not to retrieve
the documents determines whether the document by document approachis valid.

-1645

Information Science and the Phenomenon of Information

This paper aims to deduce the fundamental phenomena of information
science, starting from two premises:that information science isa problem-oriented discipline concerned with the effective transfer
of desired information from human generator to human user, and thatthe single notion common to all concepts of information now extant
is that of change of structure.
From these premises, a spectrum of information concepts is derived,
and a partition of that spectrum particular to the purposes of
information science is described.

From this partition, the terms

text and information (both in information science) are defined,
and the fundamental phenomena of information science are deduced:
the text and its structure, the structure of the recipient andchanges in that structure, and the structure of the sender andthe structuring of the text.
These phenomena are seen as the basic components of the mechanismsof the channe1, which have been the traditional area of interest to
information science.

Some implications of this approach for researchin information science are discussed in this paper.
And, finally, the question of the ethics of theoretical research ininformation science is raised, and a restrictive condition is proposed.

-165-

6
Some Sampling Characteristics of Bibliometric Distributions

Many bibliometric distributions - for example, word occurrences intext, posting density of index terms and classification scheme subject
headings, productivity of authors, and Bradford scattering of references - are positively skewed long tailed discrete distributions.
A number of theoretical distributions have been hypothesised to fit
these distributions (the most popular of which have been the lognormal and the Bradford-Zipf-Pareto type distributions), but none
seem completely satisfactory.

The actual distributions may however

be postulated to represent a random sampling by items from a
population.

In this distribution-free model, as in actuality,

increasing sample size leads to an increasing number of classes
represented and an increase in both the mean and variance of thenumber of items per class, whereas the characteristic constantparameter, known as Yules Characteristic, is a function of these threevariables.

In this paper data from a number of real bibliometric

distributions are presented to show the numerical value of Yules
Characteristic and its change with sample size, in order to test thevalidity of the model.

The effect of sample size on the number ofclasses represented is also discussed in the same light.

-166-

7

Relational Indexing Applied to the Selective Dissemination of Information

Farradane's system of relational indexing, which had been previously
used in a retrospective search system with good results, was further
tested as the indexing language for an experimental S.D.I, system.
Sections of Metals Abstracts were used for the data base of 2,820
abstracts, and forty-three volunteer users participated in theexperiment which lasted for six months. Performance was assessed byrecall, precision and fallout ratios, and the 'coefficient ofassociation1 (Q value) and the product (recall by precision) wereused as overall measures. The overall average performance was about
75% recall and 75% precision. A failure analysis was also carried out.
The browsing strategies incorporated into the system were analysed,
as were the profile structure, the distribution of performance measuresand possible relationships between recall, precision and generality.
Farradane's relational indexing appeared applicable to the different
scientific area of the properties of metals and again gave good resultswith a greater depth of indexing.
were observed.

Some new features of the system

-167-

8
Journal Ranking and Selection:

A Review in Physics

Over several decades many ranking techniques have been proposed as aids
to journal selection by libraries.

We review those closely related tophysics and others with novel features.

There are three main methodsof ranking - citation analysis, use or user judgement, and size or'productivity1.

Citations offer an 'unobtrusive' quantitative measure,but not only is the absolute value of a citation in question, but also
there is no consensus on a 'correct' way to choose the citing journals,
nor of the ranking parameter.

Citations can, however, point out

anomalies and show the changing status of journals over the years.
Use and user judgement also employ several alternative methods.

These

are in the main of limited applicability outside the specific user groupin question.

There is greater 'parochialism' in 'use' ranking then in'judged value' lists, with citation lists the most international.

In

some cases the attempted 'quantification' of subjective judgement will
be misleading.

Size and productivity rankings are normally concernedwith one or other formulation of the Bradford distribution.

Since thedistribution is not universally valid, for library use the librarianmust satisfy him/herielf that the collection conforms to the distribution,or that his users would be well served by one that did.

This may requireconsiderable effort, and statistics gained will then render the Bradford
distribution redundant.
Rank correlations are calculated on many of the lists.

Correlations

between methods are generally low, although there may be a case for astudy of various techniques on one journal/article collection and usergroup.
The lack of an agreed quantitative measure should ensure continued
reliance on subjective judgement of librarian and user.

The appropriaterole for more apparently sophisticated techniques should be a minor,
auxiliary one.

-168-

9
Communication and Information Needs of Earth Science Engineers

The paper attempts to define the information needs of earth scienceengineers: mining, engineering geology, soil and rock mechanics.
The approach was to investigate these needs in relation to theenvironment in which the engineer lives and works, his organisation,team and leadership, and partly to his own traits. The roles ofengineers as researchers, linkers and practitioners are defined.
The information needs and sources are related to the career stages ofengineers, their duties and responsibilities.

In conclusions,recommendations for a viable information retrieval system are briefly
discussed.
The methodology of the work was based on questionnaires, interviews,
visits to organisations, study of correspondence and diary, analysis
of citations and evaluation of two abstracts journals which exist in
the field.

The SPSS computer package was used for analysis of theresults of questionnaires.

-169-

10

The Paradoxical Role of Unexamined Documents in the Evaluation ofRetrieval EffectivenessTraditional measures of retrieval effectiveness, of which the recall
ratio is an outstanding example, are strongly influenced by therelevance properties of unexamined documents - documents with which
the system user has no direct contact.

Such an influence is awkward

to explain in traditional terms, but is readily justified within the
broader framework of a utility-theoretic approach.

The utility-

theoretic analysis shows that unexamined documents can be importantin theory, but usually are not when it is the statistics of large
samples that are of interest.

It is concluded that the traditional

concern with the relevance or nonrelevance of unexamined documents
is misplaced, and that traditional measures of effectiveness should
be replaced by estimates of the direct utility of the examined
d°cuments.

-170-

11
Incorporation of the Age of a Document into the Retrieval Process

A full treatment of the significance of a document for an enquirer
should include a joint description of the similarity between the
document and the enquiry in a linguistic sense, and the age of the
document at the time of the enquiry.

The basic variables are

identified in terms of a signal detection model. The age variable
is related to the phenomenon of obsolescence, which is treated as aperceived, signed attribute of relevant documents. Two retrieval
methods that use both index terms and document age are described:
one in which a set of documents, first selected by a term-intersection
process, is reduced by applying a date of publication criterion(the "subset method11); and one in which a bivariate function attaches
a single number to each document, and a retrieved set is defined by asingle threshold value (the "bivariate weight method11).

In the lattermethod, discriminant analysis is a useful aid. A model of the retrieval
process, based on continuous variables, is described, and theeffectiveness of each method is predicted, both in terms of thePrecision-Recall graph and language measures. The model suggeststhat either method can improve retrieval performance but incorrect
usage will depress it. The better choice of method will depend on
the Recall/Precision mix required by the user, as well as the actual
parameters of the distributions. A relationship is hypothesised
between the growth rate of a data base and the underlying distributions
defined by relevance judgements.

— 171 —12

On the Problem of 'Aboutness' in Document Analysis

One of the most crucial problem areas of information science concerns
the identification of what documents are 'about1.

This paper seeks

to define the notion of 'aboutness' within the context of recent workin text linguistics.

It describes, first, the essential communica-

tional structures of sentences, paragraphs and texts in terms of theme,
rheme and thematic progression, connectors of clauses and sentences,and semantic progression.

It then identifies the basic features of

the global structures of narrative and expository texts, describes theinteraction of macro and micro structure in the interpretation of
texts and the role of presupposed 'states of knowledge' in both text
production and text comprehension.

Finally, it is argued that for the

purposes of information systems the 'aboutness' of documents is to befound among the presuppositions of authors concerning the knowledge of
their potential readers.

-172-

13

Information and the Explicitly Performative Verb

The view is taken that unless and until a viable Theory of Language is
produced, language-understanding computer programs will remain an
unattainable goal.

Having rejected Transformational Generative Theory

and having noted the absence of a specific theory in the traditional
Computational Linguistics/Artificial Intelligence field, the author
proposes the Functional Theory of Language (FTL).

FTL proceeds fromthe realization that language is used to convey information from one
person to another (not always accepted by philosophers!) A class ofverbs, explicitly performative verbs, is distinguished.

Use of such

verbs in sentences displays unambiguously the intentions of the speaker(the information he wishes to convey).

This information is carried by

the presuppositions inherent in the verbs, which limit the choice ofverbs to that which accurately reveals the attitudes of the speaker(his cognitive structure).

Two computer programs have been written asa preliminary test for FTL, both of which programs accept as valid input
only those sentences containing explicitly performative verbs. The
first program detects inconsistencies in the speech of various "people11;that is to say, it tests how well understanding of English can beachieved according to FTL. For the second program, the computer isgiven a cognitive structure of its own - its own wishes, its own beliefs,
its own emotions.

It then "converses" with the user, thus testing how

well English can be 'generated1 according to FTL. Conclusions are
drawn with relevance to both Artificial Intelligence and Informatics.

-173-

14

Retrieving References by Dialogue Rather than by Query Formulation

A substantial browsing element is very common in the interaction
between research workers and the literature, because they canrarely pose perfectly defined questions.

We should take accountof this, not only in the wey that volumes are arranged on thelibrary shelves, but also in the tools we provide for reference
retrieval.

This paper describes a computer program design which aims tosatisfy incompletely defined needs through a dialogue between man
and machine which does not require the man to formulate a query.
The machine builds a model of the user's interest, and chooses
references for display according to its state, which varies as aconsequence of his reactions to the displays.

-174-L5

The Use of On-line Information Retrieval Services

As part of a British Library Research and Development Department
research programme for studying the use of on-line information systems,
UMIST examined the efficiency and reactions of users. Comparisons weremade between search results of users, users assisted by an intermediaryexperienced in using the system, and the intermediary on his own after
discussion with the user.

Using the data bases offered through the

LOCKHEED DIALOG service, it was found that users were very pleased withon-line literature searching.

Over 90% of users were partially orcompletely satisfied with the results. While 95% of users were satisfied
with their own search results, 90% preferred those of the intermediary
whose search was shorter but retrieved more references on everage.

-175-

16

A Minicomputer Retrieval System with Automatic Root Finding andRoling Facilities

Since 1965, a feature card index has formed an essential component inanswering technical enquiries.

It now contains over 20,000 items.

By 1973 the Mathatron DeskTop computer used to process the paper tape
output from an automatic testing machine had become obsolete.

It wasdecided that the replacement should handle the retrieval system input
as well as meeting the general needs for scientific calculating.
The machine selected was a Varian 620L:

a £12,000 machine with 12-16K

core and disc storage.

Although the basic notion of an inverted file has been retained, anumber of novel automatic features have been incorporated.

These

include the reduction of index entries (which may be compounds) totheir singular root forms, the elimination of redundant words and theauto-roling of words through their morphology.

Some measure ofheuristic performance is sought in this process. The system can easily
contain the entire index to date on a single interchangeable disc and
it is expected that subsequent discs will contain at least 3-4 years
information.

-176-

17

A Theoretical Basis for the Use of Co-occurrence Data in Information
RetrievalThis paper provides a foundation for a practical way of improving theeffectiveness of an automatic retrieval system.

Its main concern iswith the weighting of index terms as a device for increasing retrieval
effictiveness.

Previously index terms have been assumed to be independ-

ent for the good reason that then a very simple weighting scheme canbe used.

In reality index terms are most unlikely to be independent.

This paper explores one way of removing the independence assumption.
Instead the extent of the dependence between index terms is measured
and used to construct a nonlinear weighting function.

In a practicalsituation the values of some of the parameters of such a function mustbe estimated from small samples of documents.

So a number of estimation

rules are discussed and one in particular is recommended.

Finally thefeasibility of the computations required for a non-linear weighting
scheme is examined.

-177-

19

On the processing of Printed Subject Index Entries During Searching

Reports a laboratory experiment in which verbalized tape-recorded
searches on five printed subject indexes reveal something of thelinguistic processing that took place.

Some 20% of the entries

examined were changed grammatically, by word order change or function
word supply, according to the linguistic form of the index concerned.
Extracts from the search transcriptions are given, and the search
processing modes of seeking, scanning, and screening are discussed.

-178-

20

Relevance Weighting of Search Terms

This paper examines statistical techniques for exploiting relevance
information to weight search terms. These techniques are presented
as a natural extension of weighting methods using information about the
distribution of index terms in documents in general. A series ofretevance weighting functions is derived and is justified by theoreticalconsiderations.

In particular, it is shown that specific weighted searchmethods are implied by a general probabilistic theory of retrieval.
Different applications of relevance weighting are illus trated byexperimental results for test collections.

-179-

21
PRECIS:the Preserved Context Index System

PRECIS was originally developed by the British National Bibliography
to provide subject index data for UK/MARC records, and to produce analphabetical subject index for the national bibliography.

The present

potential of the system extends beyond these initial objectives. The
processes involved in index production are divided between the indexer
and the computer:the former undertakes those tasks which require

human judgments; the latter carries out clerical operations which areentirely mechanical.

Index entries in PRECIS have been plannedwith certain user criteria in mind:
and co-extensiveness.

in particular, comprehensibility

Basic research suggested that these could

be achieved if entries were constructed according to the principleof context-dependency1; that is, if each term in the entry sets
the next term into its obvious context. Entries constructed in thisway are generated by a computer from input strings of terms andinstruction codes written by the indexer.

The rules governing the

preparation of these strings comprise the syntax of PRECIS, andare embodied in a schema of role operators.

Reference Indicator

Numbers (RINs) are also appended to strings; these numbers leadto the extraction of appropriate See and See also references from amachine-held thesaurus. The creation and use of this thesaurus constitutes the semantic side of the system.

In addition to its semantic

and syntactic components, PRECIS has a facility, known as the Subject
Indicator Number, which provides an economical means for dealing
with 'repeat' subjects.

-18022
Alternatives to conventional multilingual thesauri
The amount of highly skilled effort required to compile a multilingual
thesaurus is enormous. Although the co-operation necessitated by amultinational system may enable the burden to be shared, experiencehas shown that the multilingual approach complicates and increases
the amount of effort required. Any thesaurus or indexing language needs
to be maintained and thus requires continuing effort.
complicated in a multilingual situation.

This is more

A controlled language system

requires continuing skilled effort to be applied to the input operation.
In a multilingual system

this is likely to be greater than in a mono-

lingual one. A multilingual thesaurus alone merely enables one tointerrogate a data base in several languages. The content of the database must still be translated.

Thus it is worthwhile considering thealternatives to conventional multilingual thesauri.

Of the alternatives

briefly described below, only one is a true alternative to a multilingual
thesaurus. However the others involve unconventional thesauri or
depend on thesauri together with other devices.

TITUS
This is a system for the automatic translation of text, such as abstracts,
into several other languages (currently English, French, German andSpanish) and for retrieving abstracts by searching for Boolean combinationsof selected words in any of the languages(4)..
. A quadrilingual thesaurus

is used, together with restricted syntax and grammar.

The input iswritten in a stylized form, using the limited syntax provided, and using
only thesaurus vocabulary.

In addition, relational words such as prepo-

sitions have to be specially indicated, and certain grammatical features
have to be tagged.

The system will convert this input into a numericalmetalanguage and the information is stored in the computer in this form.
A search question, using thesaurus terms in any of the four languages,

— 1 81 —is converted to the numerical code in which the search is conducted.

Thefull text of the abstracts found is then printed out in the chosen
language by machine translation of the metalanguage into the chosen
natural language.
The output is quite readable, although somewhat unnatural.

Synonyms

and near-synonyms of non-technical words are sometimes ill-chosen.
The input operation is expensive in skill and time and the input worksheet
is a formidable document: Titles of articles are not translated automatically.

They are input in their natural form in the original language,

and human translations in the other three languages are input at thesame time.

The effort of creating and maintaining a multilingual

thesaurus is not avoided.

This system caters for text translation,

not merely multilingual access.

Conversion of, or switching between, existing monolingual indexing languages
This may be done in two ways: (a) by using an intermediate language orsystem through which switching takes place (e.g. one could take two
existing thesauri, in different languages, and allocate UDC numbers to
all.the keywordsor (b) by multilateral comparison of existing

thesauri to make them hompatible - the 'reconciliation' technique.
(a) Intermediate switching language.

The use of UDC is possible intheory, but does not appear to have been used as yet.

The tendency

in information retrieval in the last decade has been away fromUDC.

If UDC is to be used, why not use it alone and dispense withthe thesauri?

The 'intermediate lexicon' consists of an organizedlist of terms in a given subject area, with an equivalence tableor concordance linking the terms to each of the thesauri between(9)which switching is to take place

-182(b) Reconciliation,

This is also a switching technique, but it

dispenses with a pre-constructed intermediate language(12)

Instead, the keywords of one thesaurus are compared one by
one with another thesaurus. Where exact equivalents are foundthese terms are given identical arbitrary code numbers. Where
equivalence is indirect (e.g. one thesaurus has the keyword'beer' and the other merely the broader term 'alcoholic beverages1)
the more specific keyword is given a code number, and this number
is identified in the other thesaurus by an added 'use' entry.
There are a limited number of incompatibility problems, andsolutions are possible for all of them.
Both methods enable existing thesauri to continue to be used in a
co-operative network, rather than requiring participants to change toa new common thesaurus. The intermediate lexicon has been tested
for switching to and from pre-coordinate languages as well as thesauri.
Once constructed, the intermediate lexicon can be applied to further

thesauri by constructing additional equivalence tables.

The

reconciliation process is very laborious and becomes more so whenmore than two thesauri are treated,scale.

except on a small

experimental

It enables compatibility or equivalence problems

to be analysed and solved in other multilingual work when reconciliationof complete thesauri is not the aim.

Both methods have shown that

incompatibility problems are logical rather than linguistic, i.e.
switching or reconciliation methods must preserve the most specificpractices in the constituent thesauri.

Both methods provide multilingual

access, but do not translate the contents of a data base.
PPECISThis method of mechanically producing printed pre-eoordinate indexes wasdeveloped in its present form for BNB(8), but is applicable to any document

-183-

collection.

The product is a more or less conventional printedalphabetical index with fseef and 'see also1 references, but the permutations of citation order and insertion of cross-references are
logically controlled by a form of syntax together with a controlled, but
open-ended, vocabulary or thesaurus.

It should be possible in principle

to interpret the formalized syntax into other languages and to makethe thesaurus multilingual, so that it would be possible to input
index data in one language and obtain printed indexes in other languages.
Work on this multilingual aspect of PRECIS is beginning.
PRECIS differs from the other systems considered in that it is the only
one which produces a printed index.

Moreover this printed index isin a conventional form which anyone can use without having to learna search technique.

The construction and maintenance of a multilingual

thesaurus is not avoided, but the thesaurus is built up as indexing
proceeds.

This thesaurus differs from others in its open-endedness,and in not being necessarily confined to a particular subject.

Natural language data bases with free-text searching
These are largely formless systems which move away from thesauri altogether.
They also avoid the skilled input effort of indexing, but are, however,inherently monolingual.

The only way of constructing a multilingual

system on this basis is to translate the entire data base and to operate
several parallel data bases in different languages.

At first sight

this seems to require an unreasonable amount of translating effort.

However,

in a multilingual thesaurus system the content of the data base has to betranslated if a fully multilingual system is to be obtained, so the
problem for a natural language system is no different.

There is at least

one example of a bilingual data base of this kind, using the STATUS
system.

(13)

The content consists of European statutes in English and French.

-184-

23

Alternatives to Conventional Multilingual Thesauri

Multilingual thesauri are expensive to construct and maintain. Although
they allow a database to be interrogated in several languages, the content
of the database must still be translated.

Describes 4 approaches which

represent alternatives to, or unconventional uses of multilingual thesauri:(1) TITUS (Traitement de Textile Universelle et Selective), a system forthe automatic translation of specially constructed stylized abstracts,
which allows input, searching and retrieval in 4 languages; (2) Switching
between existing monolingual index languages, through the use of anintermediate switching language, or by thesaurus reconciliation; (3) PRECIS(Preserved Context Index System) which, because of its formalised syntax,
has the potential to accept input data in one language and produce printed
indexes in another; (4) Free text searching, involving the translation of
the entire database to produce parallel databases in different languages.
This last approach appears unreasonable, but in a fully multilingual system
the content of the database has, in any case, to be translated.

-185-

24

The Intermediate Lexicon:

the possibilities for information exchange

networks.

The purpose of an intermediate lexicon is to switch index terms from
one index language to another.

Such a device allows information centres

to exchange indexing decisions without requiring that they standardise
their indexing practices.

Describes a research project at the Polytechnicof North London (UK) concerned with the design and evaluation of anintermediate lexicon for information science.

-186-

25

The Dewey Decimal Classification and automated subject retrieval

A number of workers in the field of library automation have reported
on their use of class marks selected from the DDC (including its nearest
relation, the UDC) as keys for searching machine-held files of bibliographic data.

It is difficult, from a study of these specific instances,

to draw general conclusions concerning thenumbers used in this way.

relative effectiveness of classSome projects appeared to be reasonably

successful, whereas others established that class numbers are relatively
ineffective, except perhaps as negative discriminators:

that is to say,class numbers were used in the first place to screen out parts of the database which seemed least likely to contain relevant items, and the restof the file was then searched by a different means (e.g. matching on verbaldata).

Some selected experiments are considered with a view to isolating

those factors which might account for the poor performance of DDC insome of these experiments.

It is concluded that, in general, Dewey numbers

are not the best tools for searching mechanised files. However, they were
not intended for this purpose and the question must be asked whether theeditor and publishers should take steps to remedy these faults.
the author's opinion that they should not.

It is-187-

26
An On-line System for Handling Personal Data Bases on a PDP 11/20
Minicomputer
Paper presented (in part) at the 50th Aslib Annual Conference, Universityof Exeter, September 76. Computer support for personal data bases can begiven through the production of printed indexes or by providing for the
searching of machine-readable files. Some systems offering these facilities
are briefly reviewed.

The userfile system implemented by the Experimental

Information Unit on a DEC PDP-11/20 minicomputer, was designed to offer
users a 'workspace1 for creating, maintaining and storing personal files
containing bibliographic and other types of record. The main featuresof the system are described, including:design principles; hardware; software;
file content; record structure; and searching.

The staff and research studentsof the departments of organic and inorganic chemistry at the Universityof Oxford formed the user population. The experiment revealed a demandfor personal file handling systems, indicated the possible role of personal
files in investigating information habits, and highlighted the need forflexibility in approach, ease of access and user-oriented design.

-18827
The Role of A Computer Retrieval System in Information Gathering by
Psychologists: A Pilot Survey
A sample of 15 University Lecturers in Psychology from three different
Colleges took part in a structured interview based on a 90 item questionnaire to elucidate the ways in which they dealt with psychologicalliterature.

They were then invited to make use of a computerised

information retrieval system, in which the main file was for Psychological
Abstracts, as frequently as they required over a period of three months
from the interview.

11 people made at least one visit to the system.

Cross-classifications of

84 of the questionnaire items against the criterion of 'None1, 'One' and'More than one' visits indicated 28 attributes which discriminate the'High' from the 'Non' user.

These attributes fell into 5 classes: Personal

Characteristics, Information Needs, Information Gathering Habits,
Information Output - Publishing and Research, and Prior Experience ofComputers.
Those who used the system were given a second interview about two weeks
after their first visit. Answers to a 15 item questionnaire were obtained.
These showed that the majority of users valued highly the information
they had retrieved and that about half saw the system as likely to
produce a change in the way they gathered information - better libraryuse, increased use of Inter-Library Loans and a decreased use of
bibliographic tools. All users made suggestions for making the system
more'client effective'.
Proposals are made for a main study founded upon the indicative factors
revealed by this pilot survey.

-18928
Investigation of Some Aspects of On-line Searching
The fundamental objectives of this project were (1) to determine theextent to which on-line search systems conceived in terms of thesauruscontrolled data bases are applicable to free-text data bases which do
not have a thesaurus, (2) to determine the degree to which knowledge ofthe data base, experience in searching it, and preliminary preparationof a search strategy are necessary for successful on-line searching,(3) to determine the extent to which searches having a high chemical
structure content can be successfully performed on an on-line systemsuch as Lockheed Dialog, with no left-hand truncation facility.
Searches of various data bases on the Lockheed Dialog on-line systemwere performed by several "user centres", and details of the searchesof the Chemcon data base were sent to UKCIS.

The questionnaires completed

by the users were analysed, and the search dialogues were also studied.
For several of the searches for which all the appropriate information,
including the search question, was available, the searches were repeatedby UKCIS staff, and the user centre searches were compared with the
UKCIS searches. The results of all these investigations are given in
Chapters 2 and 3.

It was found that the difference in quality between

the searches carried out by UKCIS and those carried out by the user
centres was not significant, but the searches which were carried out
by the users themselves were very much inferior.
Since few of the user centre searches contained a significant chemical
structure dement, UKCIS performed some extra searches on chemical structurebased queries. Although the precision of these searches was, in general,very high, the recall is expected to be quite low, owing to the lackof a left-hand truncation facility.

Because of this need for full truncationin searching chemical names, the more "chemical" a search is, the lesssuccessful it will normally be. Details of the structure-based searches

-190-are given in Chaper 4.
A comparison of searches carried out on three currently-available on-line
systems, Lockheed Dialog, SDC Orbit and SDS/Recon, was performed, anddetails of this appear in Chapter 5.

The ability of the systems toperform the searches, the search times and the search performances were
investigated, and the good and bad points of each of the three systems
in searching the Chemcon data base are listed.
In Chapter 6, the good points and deficiencies of the Lockheed Dialog
system, as identified by UKCIS, are first discussed.

Then the impressions

and comments of the staff of three of the user centres regarding thesystem are given.

The extent to which the Lockheed Dialog system fulfils

the three main objectives of the project is then discussed.

Finally,

the main differences between theLockheed Dialog, SDC Orbit and SDS/Reconon-line systems are discussed, and the facilities required of a goodon-line system for searching the Chemcon data base are stated, consistingof particular facilities from each of the three systems investigated,
together with additional facilities not present in any of the threesystems.

— 191 —29
Reference Retrieval by User-Negotiated Term Frequency Ordering
Within a Dynamically adjusted Notional "Document1'

A project is described which sets out to refine the "user-friendly"interactive retrieval system introduced by Oddy.

The documents

handled by Oddy?s system were indexed by binary terms.

But a given

term may play quite different roles in different documents.

Termfrequency weights might have suggested an obvious way of quantifying
this distinction, were it not for the mediocre performance of term
frequency based strategies in tests.

Robertson and Sparck Jones haveargued that neither indexing policies nor matching functions can be
profitably examined in isolation.

An iterative matching procedure is

explained which presupposes that terms are ranked within a document
description as a function of their term frequency:

document descrip-

tions are compared with the ordering of terms in a pattern.

The model

depends on a convenient fiction - the dynamic description of a notional"document", corresponding to the user's information need and constructedin the course of the dialogue.

This model is given no interpretation

outside the context of interactive retrieval.

The request pattern is adjusted in response to the user's verdict ona subset of the highest ranking documents.

In a large collection

many documents might attain an equally high rank.

A subsidiary refinement

endeavors to improve precision by exploiting syntactic features.

-192-

30
Machine Architectures Suitable for Information Retrieval Systems

The present status of on-line information retrieval systems is outlinedwith some particular problems, concerning the implementation of systems,
highlighted.

It is suggested that the root causes of the difficulties

may lie in the inadequacy of present day, general purpose computersfor our particular application.

A machine architecture is suggested

that may enable the problems to be surmounted and an experiment is
described which allows testing of the suggested design at a low cost.
A full scale, working system based on the ideas presented could also
be implemented at an economical cost should the result of the experiments
make this desirable.

-193-

31

The Application of Minicomputers to Problems of Information Retrieval

Current awareness information retrieval can easily be handled by amini, but minis are, in fact, rarely used for this type of application.
In retrospective searching of large data bases a mini can be used if
an overnight turnround is acceptable.

Often, a mini is used to connectuser terminals and other peripherals to a mainframe as a means of:(1) removing some work from the mainframe; (2) enabling simpler input/
output software to be used; (3) allowing alterations to be made to themainframe configuration without altering the users' image of the system.
The most valuable application of minis is in networking, where they canbe used to provide access to a range of mainframes providing on-line
searches of different data bases.

Because of its relatively small

main memory a mini is unlikely to be used to support an information
retrieval system by itself.

It can, however, play a role in providing

retrospective search facilities if used in conjunction
hardware.

with other-194-

32
Mini-computers and Bibliographic Information Retrieval

Results of an investigation into several operational and proposed
information retrieval systems on minicomputers and a comparison offacilities available on minis with those on mainframe systems •Describes the characteristics of minis, and discusses bibliographic
information retrieval, and various questions to be considered before
implementing a computerised system, drawing attention to the ways inwhich the characteristics of minis affect these considerations.

Cons-tructs models of configurations suitable for information retrieval
on various sizes of data base in order to examine how minis may provide
a bibliographic service for which previously a mainframe would havebeen thought necessary.

Concludes that in calculating the value ofa computer system it is crucial to establish costs.

The advantages ofminis in terms of their cheapness, accessibility and communications
facilities make them suitable for information retrieval systems.

-195-

APPENDIXG

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