PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF ‘FEATURE CARD’ SYSTEMS. III

Abstract

Our first excursion in co‐ordinate indexing occurred on a modest scale in 1948 when we used it to index some correspondence that had hitherto provided somewhat of a headache to file and retrieve. We used a system of co‐incident numbers entered on cards and found it delightfully simple and most effective. Not unnaturally our thoughts turned to other applications and we did in fact apply the idea to a file of corrosion literature using as ordinates the metal involved and the environment in which it was intended to use it. By this means it was simple to record or retrieve information on corrosion of several metals in common use in a variety of environments. This was, however, only an experiment, the natural corollary of which was to increase its application to wider fields of the technical literature. Those of you who have read my earlier article will remember that I described our reluctance to depart from the more orthodox methods of documentation but how, after reading details of the ASTIA experiment, we decided to abandon classification and throw all our energies into building a co‐ordinate index for the deep indexing of our technical reports. We decided that in view of the cost of obtaining the information contained in our reports we could well afford to spend both time and money in ensuring that we could retrieve it when it was needed. The circumstances in which we came to use the Brisch‐Vistem ‘1000’ card are given in my earlier paper together with other detail which it is unnecessary to repeat here. I should however like to say that our hopes have continued to be justified, and that since we began indexing the use made of our reports has increased by over 700 per cent. This in itself was a fair reward for our efforts and spurred us on to further applications.

Citation

JOHNSON, A. (1963), "PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF ‘FEATURE CARD’ SYSTEMS. III", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 15 No. 6, pp. 186-188. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb049932