Information Retrieval: Implementation Activities for the IEEE

This article treats information retrieval (IR) in general, and discusses two types of activities: 1) what the IEEE is doing and 2) how an IEEE member might start his own small-scale IR system. The initial phase of the IEEE IR program consists of a series of trial runs in several Group Transactions of IR-type catalog cards. These cards contain not only the customary bibliographic information but also an "indicative-informative" abstract and index terms. A generalized IR system is described in terms of a catalog card file, an index file, and a document file. The proposed card format, when implemented, will help cut down the work involved in feeding information into the catalog card file. The index file can use any of several types of index cards, such as an edge-punched card, a machine punched card, a card with written lists of document accession numbers, or an optical coincidence card known as a peek-a-boo card. The peek-a-boo card seems to have desirable features of simplicity and ease of browsing.