Search results

Brian Vickery has been a prolific writer as this list — which covers a period of forty active years — indicates. There are almost certainly omissions. He has, for example, been an incisive if gentle reviewer, in this and other journals, of the contemporary literature. Only a few of his extended reviews are included here. The bibliography illustrates the breadth of Brian's professional interests: from Bradford's law in the forties to expert systems in the eighties, with significant contributions to contemporary developments throughout the interim. The range is formidable and characteristic.

There is a huge amount of information and data stored in publicly available online databases that consist of large text files accessed by Boolean search techniques. It is widely held that less use is made of these databases than could or should be the case, and that one reason for this is that potential users find it difficult to identify which databases to search, to use the various command languages of the hosts and to construct the Boolean search statements required. This reasoning has stimulated a considerable amount of exploration and development work on the construction of search interfaces, to aid the inexperienced user to gain effective access to these databases. The aim of our paper is to review aspects of the design of such interfaces: to indicate the requirements that must be met if maximum aid is to be offered to the inexperienced searcher; to spell out the knowledge that must be incorporated in an interface if such aid is to be given; to describe some of the solutions that have been implemented in experimental and operational interfaces; and to discuss some of the problems encountered. The paper closes with an extensive bibliography of references relevant to online search aids, going well beyond the items explicitly mentioned in the text. An index to software appears after the bibliography at the end of the paper.

In beginning its work at the end of the 1950s, the Aslib Research and Development Department inevitably faced the task of identifying the most significant problems for investigation, at the same time having the need to establish appropriate experimental techniques. Most of the projects undertaken since that time have dealt with current problems, and to an extent the advent of new technologies and techniques to the information world (mechanization in the 'sixties, management studies in the early 'seventies, on‐line working and publication problems in more recent years) is reflected in the work reported below. What follows is a complete bibliography of publications by members of the Department from its formation up to the end of 1977.

An assessment of B.C. Vickery's contribution to the development of classification for retrieval. This has been both practical and intellectual. On the practical side his work in the early CRG and elsewhere enhanced the status of classification for retrieval as a significant field of study. On the intellectual side he demonstrated the use of his own elaborated version of Ranganathan's facets for the purposes of western special libraries. He analysed the essential features of retrieval systems generally as the required framework within which classification could usefully play a part. The paper discusses some remaining ‘grey areas’ in faceted classification, classificatory fragments implicit in many thesauri, and the value for expository purposes of a mildly polemic approach to issues in classification.

The issues involved in the construction of an expert system for retrieval are described, together with some of the techniques that have been used in artificial intelligence and information science to tackle them. The solutions adopted by the prototype expert system PLEXUS are described, with particular reference to the semantic processing that takes place. The paper concludes with a discussion of continuing issues on which work is currently proceeding.

The 54th meeting of the CRG was held at the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, where the Aslib Research Project is testing the comparative efficiency of information retrieval systems. One system on trial is a faceted classification for Aeronautics and allied subjects, drafted by B. C. Vickery and J. E. L. Farradane, and since revised with the aid of the Project workers, C. W. Cleverdon, J. Hadlow, T. Opatowski, and J. Sharp.

In 1966, the Government's Office for Scientific and Technical Information offered to increase its support for Aslib specifically to encourage it to build up a viable research department, to undertake systematic programmes of research into scientific and technical information systems, and to provide consultancy services in this field. In response to an appeal from Lord Kings Norton, then President of Aslib, some twenty member organizations agreed to share with OSTI the cost of this new development during its first three years. The three‐year development period ended in December 1969, and an account of the progress made during this period was published in Aslib Proceedings for May 1970.

Metatheory is described as the analysis of the presuppositions of a field of knowledge or practice. The presuppositions at the basis of the practice of information science are discussed, in particular relation to such concepts as information, knowledge (personal and public), message, message designation, information want and need, query, relevance and information search. The nature of these presuppositions is considered, and the conditions under which they may be replaced by others.

With preceding chapters setting the stage, this one will provide a view of Brian C. Vickery's accomplishments from the vantage point of several thousand miles. His career in information science has been an impressive one. What has made it so? To answer that question, it is first necessary to examine his research accomplishments, then their impact, which has spread farther than might have been anticipated at the time of their publication.

Line's recently proposed technique for correcting the ‘apparent’ half‐life to allow for the rate of growth of the literature and Vickery's critical analysis of the proposal are both further analysed. Using the concept of utility and considering the sampling variances involved, the paper shows that Line's technique is both questionable and impractical, and that a further factor—the growth of the number of contributors—needs to be allowed for in Vickery's analysis. A collaborative empirical investigation is proposed.