Smart spaces, or smart environments, represent the next evolutionary development in buildings, banking, homes, hospitals, transportation systems, industries, cities, and government automation. By riding the tide of sensor and event processing technologies, the smart environment captures and processes information about its surroundings as well as…

This article attempts to offer an overview of the current changes that are being experienced in the management of audio-visual documentation and those that can be forecast in the future as a result of the migration from analogue to digital information. For this purpose the documentary chain will be used as a basis to analyse individually the tasks…

To index at the Defense Documentation Center (DDC), an automated system must choose single words or phrases rapidly and economically. Automation of DDC's indexing has been machine-aided from its inception. A machine-aided indexing system is described that indexes one million words of text per hour of CPU time. (22 references) (Author/SJ)

Reports on study analyzing 13 abstracting and indexing (A&I) operations in order to ascertain those steps in specific processes that added value (i.e., were of benefit to user in making choices from information displayed). The user-driven/value-added model and a summary of value-added processes in A&I services are highlighted. (11…

A uniterm keyword system is explained which is thought to be suitable for small information centers operated by a staff of one or two. (3 references) (Author)

Describes work in progress at the Smithsonian Institution in developing a system to understand and articulate the information needed to support collection related functions. The discussion covers the data modeling methodology used and the advantages of this methodology in structuring museum collections information. (one reference) (CLB)

This examination of abstracting-indexing services for the field of history focuses on Historical Abstracts (HA) and America--History and Life (AHL), and their relationship to the American Bibliographical Center's Subject Profile Index (ABC-SPIndex). The history, scope, selection criteria, and classification arrangements of the two databases are…

This paper on Thesauri in Educational Documentation attempts to show by description and analysis the difference in application between thesauri and classification schemes as indexing languages in documentary information systems, and from this to infer possible future developments. First, the differences between the pre-coordination and…

The Multiterm system is shown to be a unique concept for producing a multilingual index via computer processing. The new concept has significance for international cooperative programs. (6 references) (Author/NH)

This is the fifth in a series of eight reports of a research study for the National Agricultural Library (NAL) on the effective utilization of bibliographic data bases in machine readable form. NAL desires ultimately to develop techniques of interacting with other data bases so that queries put to NAL may be answered with documents or document…

A formula is given that enables one to determine the parameters for amortizing an information system within a year. The formula is illustrated with three mechanized information systems for patents. The most critical parameter is shown to be indexing time. (7 references) (Author/NH)

A description is given of the RAIDS (Rapid Availability of Information and Data for Safety) method of information storage and retrieval. Acquired data are stored in the library in its original printed form. RAIDS provides three approaches to the identification and retrieval of data. The first approach is to organize the information into logical…

TRIAL is an information processing system that will perform editing, indexing, and retrieval of textual and certain types of numeric information. The system allows for: (1) the creation and maintenance of a master file, (2) indexing on words designated as 'key' words or, alternatively, on every word in the text, excluding those common terms that…

The purpose of the study was to determine how many questions judged relevant to an article are also judged relevant using different length representations of the article, and how this proportion changes as the length of the representation changes. Several persons made relevance judgments for each of a set of articles to each of a set of questions.…

People who develop information into a consumable form seem at times to work in a vacuum, failing to consider the potential users. Some helpful tips for preparing documents for easy retrieval and use, based upon guidelines followed in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) system, are presented. The three major areas of evaluation are…