This brief review of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) system is intended to make users more aware of (1) the system as a whole, (2) the process of indexing educational literature for the database, and (3) the role of the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors in the overall information dissemination process. An overview of the ERIC system is provided, and a discussion of ERIC vocabulary maintenance includes descriptions of the 1977 Vocabulary Improvement Project (VIP) and the Vocabulary Review Group. In addition, information retrieval methods and tools for manual and computer searching are considered; and a discussion of ERIC's indexing provides general guidelines as well as detailed discussions of educational and age level descriptors, identifiers, and publication types. Further hints for relevant retrieval consider non-subject access and the target audience. Also included in the text are a listing of ERIC's searchable fields and vendors' field access labels; sample Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE) entries; listings of mandatory educational and age level descriptors, publication/document types, and descriptors corresponding to publication type categories; and a guide for assigning pubtype codes. (KM)