TRIAL (Technique for Retrieving Information from Abstracts of Literature) is an information storage and retrieval system which can be used by school media specialists to produce indexes of non-print materials. This manual provides a step by step approach for media specialists to automate their non-print holdings. These procedures can also be applied to all materials which require bibliographic control or file efficiency. Instructions are provided for building TRIAL on nine levels of information, how to create a permanent file, how to retrieve an index on each and every level, and how to search the data base. Although only batch processing is explained in this manual, TRIAL can also be manipulated on-line. (Author/AWP)