INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY Editor: DAVID E. GUSHEE Editorial Headquarters 1155 Sixteenth St., N.W. Washington, D. C. 20036 Phone 202-737-3337 Assistant Editors: William L. Jenkins, D. H. Michael Bowen Manager Research Results Service: Stella Anderson Layout and Production: Joseph Jacobs, Director of Design Bacil Guiley, Production Manager Leroy Corcoran, Assistant Art Director Norman W. Favin (Design) Production-Easton, Pa. Associate Editor: Charlotte C. Sayre Editorial Assistant: Jane M. Andrews International Editorial Bureaus Frankfurt/Main, West Germany Grosse Bockenheimerstrasse 32 Donald J. Soisson London, W.C.2, England 27 John Adam St. Robin A. Johnson Tokyo, Japan 12 Iikura Kata-machi, Azabu Minato-ku Michael K. McAbee ADVISORY BOARD: S. George Bankoff, William C. Bauman, Floyd L. Culler, Merrell R. Fenske, Leo Friend, Howard L. Gerhart, Robert L. Hershey, Charles A. Kumins, Robert N. Maddox, Charles N. Satterfield, Warren C. Schreiner, Eric G. Schwartz, Thomas K. Sherwood, Joseph Stewart, Shen Wu Wan
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS 1155 Sixteenth St., N.W. Washington, D. C. 20036 Director of Publications: Richard L. Kenyon Director of Business Operations: Joseph H. Kuney Publication Manager, Journals: David E. Gushee Executive Assistant to the Director of Publications: Rodney N. Hader Circulation Development Manager: Herbert C. Spencer Assistant to the Director of Publications: William Q. Hull Advertising hfanagement R E I N H O L D PUBLISHING C O R P O R A T I O N (For list of offices, see page 7 2 )
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&.,
1968 SUBSCRIPTION Postage er Year RATES Canada 7 2 3 PUAS Foreign year years yews American Chemical Society $1.00 $1.50 $4.00 $6.00 58.00 Members Nonmembcrr $1.00 $1.50 $5.00 $7.00 $9.00
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ED I T 0R I A L
InformaationRetrieval Problems nformation retrieval has, in the 1960’s, become such a matter
1 for concern that the number of people employed full-time to manage
the archives threatens to approach the number actively working to feed those archives with new information. The advent of computers and of skilled professionals to program them, together with the expenditure of large sums of money, has, however, led to a widespread feeling of confidence that, in a matter of years, computers will cut the information explosion down to size. This optimistic view is based on continually rising computer speeds, larger memories with rapid access, and more flexible programs. Nevertheless, one cloud looms on the horizon-our ability to search the body of knowledge held so compactly on magnetic tapes and to come up with just the information we seek, no less and no more. The National Library of Medicine in 1964 started one of the world’s largest and most ambitious information systems, designed to serve the biological and medical professions. The system is called MEDLARS (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System) ; it simultaneously provides input to Index Medicus and to a computer base for retrospective searching. While the production of the Index has been eased by computerization, experience with the MEDLARS Demand Search Service, through which medical workers attempt to retrieve information, has revealed several stumbling blocks. For this rather unsettling news, we are indebted to a most objective evaluation of MEDLARS performed by F. W. Lancaster of NLM. An analysis of requests to the system revealed that, on the average, only 58% of the material known to be relevant and to be present in the literature base was actually retrieved. Moreover, what the system did retrieve consisted of as much irrelevant as relevant material. What is most surprising and, indeed, disturbing is that the MEDLARS search system is as sophisticated as any in the world. If these failures in “recall” and “precision” were due to errors in card-punching or computer processing alone, there would be little cause for concern. But Lancaster’s analysis shows clearly that the majority of the failures were due to imperfect indexing, inadequate indexing language, poor searching strategies, or a lack of proper understanding of the system by the requester. While no single one of these weaknesses totally defies improvement, it can be seen that failure is due to three very basic and hard-to-change factors-people, their use of language, and their knowledge of the intellectual structure of their technology. How this all affects I&EC and its readers is clear. As a review and survey journal, I&EC is committed to presenting the effects on technical practice of increases in technical understanding. One of our main tools is the analysis of the results of retrospective searches, performed by skilled authors. An effective way to search the literature is becoming a necessity, but it will still be several years before anyone can do it effectively by machine. Perhaps our best hope for progress lies in promoting a much closer liaison between those who need information and the systems people who program the computers. I t is probably too much to ask people to change lifelong writing habits, but it isn’t unreasonable to expect them to cooperate with systems analysts when their own interests are at stake.
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