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Personal information management (PIM) is an activity in which people store information items in order to retrieve them later. The purpose of this paper is to test and quantify the effect of factors related to collection size, file properties and workload on file retrieval success and efficiency.

In the study, 289 participants retrieved 1,557 of their shared files in a naturalistic setting. The study used specially developed software designed to collect shared files’ names and present them as targets for the retrieval task. The dependent variables were retrieval success, retrieval time and misstep/s.

Various factors compromise shared files retrieval including: collection size (large number of files), file properties (multiple versions, size of team sharing the file, time since most recent retrieval and folder depth) and workload (daily e-mails sent and received). The authors discuss theoretical reasons for these negative effects and suggest possible ways to overcome them.

Retrieval is the main reason people manage personal information. It is essential for retrieval to be successful and efficient, as information cannot be used unless it can be re-accessed. Prior PIM research has assumed that factors related to collection size, file properties and workload affect file retrieval. However, this is the first study to systematically quantify the negative effects of these factors. As each of these factors is expected to be exacerbated in the future, this study is a necessary first step toward addressing these problems.

Items of information that have been stored in a computer normally need to be accessed via their contents. In principle this is always possible by doing an exhaustive scan of the entire file of information, but to achieve the access efficiently we use some sort of organizing principle, a file organization or file structure, to reduce the amount anning. Typically the items retrieved are a response to a request which fully or partially specifies their contents. Often the file organization requires pre‐processing of the body of information so that a secondary body of information (an index or directory) may be created which in some sense reveals the contents of the file. So, ultimately file structures are time saving devices, where we pay for the time saved by extra storage. They enable us quickly to find items of information by completely or partially specifying their contents.

Downloading and uploading offer labour‐saving advantages and are now accepted as useful options in online searching. All aspects are here considered, from recent technical advances, applications and legal attitudes. There is also a review of current software for downloading. Recent developments mean a trend to higher internal memory and storage capacity, and greater transmission speeds. Packages now offer access to more than one host, give maximum assistance to the user without being menu‐driven and incorporate the latest developments in artificial intelligence. Disadvantages are in the length of time involved in the process and the fact that the legal issue of copyright has not yet been finalised. Database producers have turned to licensing under contract law, but there is still need to rely on user ethics, and the need for a standard permissions form is highlighted.

The ICL Distributed Array Processor, or DAP, is a single instruction stream, multiple data stream computer in which instructions are broadcast for simultaneous execution in each of 4096 processing elements. Although originally developed for numeric computation, the DAP also provides a means for the rapid matching of the term lists representing documents and queries in information retrieval systems, and this paper presents an investigation of the use of the DAP for the parallel searching of large serial files of documents. Best match retrieval experiments with three collections of documents and queries show that the DAP is very much more efficient than a conventional mainframe computer in calculating a measure of similarity between a query and each of the documents in a large collection. It is suggested that the DAP, or machines with similar architectures, could form the basis for interactive bibliographic searching of serial files.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:

This paper sets out to elicit the patterns of information storage and retrieval in Nigerian university libraries.

A descriptive survey method was adopted in looking at the various patterns of information storage and retrieval in Nigerian university libraries.

The findings of the research revealed that storage and retrieval devices such as computer hard disks, audio‐tapes, video‐tapes, video‐players, television, Internet, Xerox, database management systems, microforms, CD‐ROM, worm‐disk, magnetic‐optical disk, magnetic tapes, flat files, memory cards and many others are the various patterns through which information/data can be stored and retrieved in Nigerian university libraries. This has brought about widespread technological resources for effective and efficient routine library operations.

This research and its findings will assist Nigerian university libraries and beyond to know how best to care for their information/data storage and retrieval, and ensure that adequate facilities are provided and experts/librarians are trained in such contexts, so as to meet changing trends in the world and in order to satisfy users' information needs.

Text information retrieval systems fall into three main categories: full text, free vocabulary, controlled vocabulary. Using the software ADABAS and NATURAL, we developed and implemented an Information Retrieval System for the National Television and Radio Network. The system falls into the free vocabulary and controlled vocabulary categories and constitutes an adaptable model for information retrieval applications in other areas as well.

The paper describes the prototype Associative Interactive Dictionary. (AID) system for search strategy formulation on a large operational free text on‐line bibliographic retrieval system. The primary design objective of the Associative Interactive Dictionary is the automatic generation and display of related terms, synonyms, broader and narrower terms and other semantic associations for given search concepts. The associative analysis procedures rely on statistical frequency distribution information about term occurrences in a set of document texts retrieved in response to a Boolean search query and the occurrence frequencies of the same terms in the entire data base. Over the past two decades, a number of small experimental retrieval systems have utilized term associations for automatic or semiautomatic document classification, indexing, thesaurus building or as a search aid. These experimental systems primarily employ term‐term and term‐document matrices for the computation of similarity measures between and among terms and documents. The matrix technique can not be implemented efficiently and cost effectively on large operational retrieval systems owing to problems of scale limitations. The major on‐line bibliographic search systems, such as ELHILL, ORBIT, DIALOG, RECON, BRS and others, do not provide any search aids other than the inherent browsing capability, term truncation and/or sequential string searching. In some files, manually constructed on‐line thesauri offer partial assistance to the user. The prototype AID system overcomes the problems of scale by utilizing a computationally efficient similarity measure and a highly compressed in‐core hash table of terms and term frequencies. The hash table can accommodate tens of thousands of free text search terms. Both an on‐line version and a batch version of the Associative Interactive Dictionary system are currently operational on TOXLINE, a large file of over 400,000 journal citations with abstracts on toxicology and the environment. TOXLINE is one of several on‐line data bases on the National Library of Medicine's ELHILL retrieval system. The overal design of the AID system is general in nature, and therefore it can be implemented on other large operational retrieval systems.

The aim is to determine, in a business context, if tagging is a more effective method of discovering relevant information when compared to traditional hierarchical filing systems.

A five‐step interpretive hybrid approach of using both a focus group, questionnaires and SWOT analysis was used to test the proof of concept of tagging files compared to a traditional hierarchical filing system. The approach taken was chosen because of the difficulties and tradeoffs that had to be made between the number of champions and people available to take part in the research; the time that they could allow; and because transcription or recording of the participants was not permitted. The participants were encouraged to use the questionnaires and the SWOT analysis to record their thoughts anonymously whilst the focus groups allowed elaboration and discussion to help understand the true feelings and thoughts of the group collaboratively.

Traditional hierarchical filing systems can lead to the retrieval of irrelevant information, or to none at all, even though the information exists. The study shows that tagging could provide a cost‐effective solution by providing a better structured filing system that can help reduce duplication and the retrieval of irrelevant information.

One limitation of the study was the limited number of participants from just one organisation. Thus, generalisation of the results of this study to the wider population must be done with great care.

Organisations should evaluate the functionality of their chosen operating system and information store software in light of the potential benefits offered by tagging, and costly limitations of traditional file stores.

The paper contributes to the information retrieval and information overload literature by studying the effect tagging files has on an organisation. It provides an insight to the future of filing systems for management and triggers future empirical work into reducing information overload in the workplace.

The design of bibliographic records for computer input is explored. The elements of a record provide bibliographic description, serve as retrieval keys, facilitate ordered filing, and indicate locations. The effect of each of these functions on the form of the record is discussed. Problems are raised that must be resolved before an optimal record can be designed.