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in the Chemical Laboratory
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Edited by NORMAN V. STEERE, 1 4 0 Melbourne Ave., S.E. Minneapolis, Minn. 5 5 4 1 4
XLVIII. Analysis and Automated Handling of Technical Information at the Nuclear Safety Information Center*
feature
-Editor's
J. R. Buchanan and F. C. Huttan,Nuclear Safety Information Center, Oak Ridae National Laboratory; and Computing Technology Center, Union carbide Corporation
Note
I t is lone past the time when it may ha've been practicable to get chemical safety information by looking in divergent places, writing to the manufacturer, or asking an ACS committee to supply references on specific hazards. (See Letters. Chem and End News 46, No. 12, March 11, 1968.) No committee can have available all
The Nuclear Safety Information Center serves the nuclear community by collecting, storing, evaluating, and disseminating safety information relevant, to the design and operation of nuclear facilities. I n 1964, after about a year of operation, the information-handling system was computerized in order to increase broadly the scope of the Center's services and enable efficient functioning in the future. Computer programs were developed for the preparation of a bibliography, complete with key words and personal author indexes, that is issued quarterly and for a program of selective dissemination of information (SDI) that is produced on cards. These programs and other services of the Center are discussed. The USAEC established the Nuclear Safety Information Center (NSIC) a t Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in March, 1963. The Center serves the nuclear community by collecting, storing, evaluating, and disseminating safety information relevant to the design and operation of nuclear facilities (1). I t was in operation almost immediately after its establishment because the scientists and engineers necessary to the operation of a center, and without which an information center is hardly more than a specialized library, were already on the ORNL staff or available through existing consulting contracts The subject of nuclear safety was divided into 19 cateeones, such as Accident Analysis, and technical personnel were assigned on fractional-time basis to study these categories, prepare review articles and reports, answer inquiries, and catalog information. Each reference reviewed by system of key words developed by the staff (S). The key words, title, author, corporate author, and abstract for each docitrnent, were initially recorded on cards and duplicate cards were filed under each key word, mthor, and corporate author. 'Research sponsored by the U S . Atomic Energy Commission under contract with the Union Carbide Corporation. This article appeared unabridged in American Dommentation, 18, No. 4 (1967).
This system enabled the Center to get into operat,ion immediately and was qnite workable as long as informationitems were not too numerous. After about a year, however, it, was decided to computerize the system for use of the IBM 7090s a t the Computing Technology Center1 in order to broadly increase the scope of the Center's services and prepare for future growth without burdening the technical staff with the routine. Two computer outputs were initially planned: the first was a bibliography, complete with key word and personal author indexes, to be issued quarterly: and the second was out,put in the form of cards for a program of selective dissemination of information (SDI). Both of these outputs are now in operation. The development of these programs, particularly the SUI, is described and the range of services and organization of the Center are discussed in this review.
the references in the literature, and no manufacturer can reply to all the inquiries which could come from everyone who might use a particular chemical. Computerized inform:ttion-hat~dlin~, such that described in the accom~mying article, c m provide a basis for automsted storage and r e t r i e d of chernicd safety information. The ACS Handbook for Authors directs authors of journal articles as foll o : "Any unexpected hazards encountered with the experimental work must be noted and emphasized." If this direction is followed routinely. as it should be. the hazards reported can be ;ibstrs>cted and made retrievable from the computer system of the Chemic!il Abstracts Service. If it is not,many hmard%will continue to be rediscovered sit avoidable expense. Furthermore, this editor feels that it would be :i good idea for the major chemical and research orcynizations to
Computer Program Development
A prime consideration in developing the computer programs was to keep the system flexible enough to permit giowth of NSIC ooeiatiun and to make it feasible to extend the system to the work of other information centers without major modifications to the programs. Both these requirements dictated that the programa he fast and that the capacities of the programs be large. Speed was obtained by writing the highly repetitive parts of the programs in symbolic language subroutines usable by the programs, which are written in COBOL. Large capacity was obtained by always being attentive to the amounts of computer core storage required by different techniques. To date, four other centers have used the basic programs. Four programs make up the system; T h e Computing Technology Center, w h ~ oh ~ m a t e scomnutem and does mobclear Division for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission a t the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant,. F. C. Hutton supervises the Information Retrieval Section of the Information Systems Denartment of the CTC
one will form and update a >[aster Tape; ime will select items from the tape and prepare a bibliography; and one will search the tape in response to questions. The fourth program is used to maintain the key-word file that appears on the front of the Master Tape. The following information appears o r the computer tapes, which are organized in linear fashion so that everything concerning one item on the tape appears together serially; the asterisk indicates that the element is searchable or can be discriminated a t this time: '1
Type, such as ieports, jouinal articles etc *2 Evaluation of eontents (as to pertinency) '3 Category (such as Accident Anal-
mis) 4
Journal Codes)
abbreviation
(ASTM's
(Continued on page .IQlO)
Volume 45, Number 6, June 1968
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A487
Safety
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*:>. Date *6 *7. '8. *9 *I0 11
Language Country Coroorate author ~ e r . k a l author(s) Title Description, such as pages, figures,
i9 hT-9 1-2 Abstract *13 Keywords
Key words are weighted on searching, with a n acceptable total weight he in^ specified, and negative weights are permitted. Search elements can be connected on an AND/OR basis. Another form of weightiiig is wed when the references are indexed by assigning an asterisk to the key words
