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Farradane's categories of relations (Fig. 1) are viewed as percepts rather than concepts. It is argued that Farradane's original use of language supports this view. A comparison of Farradane's categories with perceptual discriminations in humans is attempted. The conclusion seems to support claims made for relational operators, whether those of Farradane or similar relational indexing devices as in PRECIS, to have the potential to act as metalanguages.

In the money under review the meetings of the Group have been lively and well attended, with over twenty members present at many meetings. The following visitors and overseas members were welcomed at Group meetings:

The group has continued to meet regularly since the publication of the last bulletin and has welcomed a number of new members and visitors from both home and overseas. Many members who joined at the beginning or very early on in the Group's history still attend regularly, but several long‐standing members have also left, or ceased active participation, in the period under review. Towards the end of 1972 Mr Wells relinquished the chairmanship of the Group, due to pressure of work, and his place was taken by Mr Mills. Another departure, and one that robbed the Group of one of its most active and forceful members, was that of Jason Farradane. He left the country in 1974, and the Group presented him with a book as a memento of many enjoyable and provocative discussions stimulated by his presence at the meetings which he unfailingly attended. It was with great pleasure that he was welcomed back to a meeting while he was visiting this country in January 1976.

The last CRG Bulletin, no. 7, dealt only with the practical application of four faceted special classifications.

Farradane's system of relational indexing, which had been previously used in a retrospective search system with good results, was further tested as the indexing language for an experimental S.D.I. system. Sections of Metals Abstracts were used for the data base of 2,820 abstracts, and forty‐three volunteer users participated in the experiment which lasted for six months. Performance was assessed by recall, precision and fallout ratios, and the ‘coefficient of association’ (Q value) and the product (recall X precision) were used as overall measures. The overall average performance was about 75% recall and 75% precision. A failure analysis was also carried out. The browsing strategies incorporated into the system were analysed, as were the profile structure, the distribution of performance measures and possible relationships between recall, precision and generality. Farradane's relational indexing appeared applicable to the different scientific area of the properties of metals and again gave good results with a greater depth of indexing. Some new features of the system were observed.

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.

This discussion treats relational analysis as an alternative to the ‘categorical’ view of syntactic structures in indexing. It is suggested that the relational characterization of syntactic structures by reference to the meaning of the spaces between constituent terms may point the way to classification structures which are stable to new knowledge and discipline‐independent. Conversely the meaning‐protecting role of disciplinary domains has in the past relegated relational ideas to a peripheral significance in classification structures. General properties of syntactic strings, logical articulation, disarticulation, and linearization of branching relationships are discussed, together with the role of relational symbolism as noise in significant‐word based searches. Attention is next given to certain derivative relations which arise out of an inclusion relation between an isolated concept and the relation‐linked combination of which it forms a part. One class of these derivative relations is an explicit syntactic relation and its affiliation to other syntactic relations may throw light on the little understood nature and development of the content of personality facets.

My contact with Herbert Coblans was limited, alas, to our shared concerns in the field of subject indication. He first sought me out in the early 1960s, ostensibly to find out about the indexing methodology of British Technology Index, then with its birth agonies not too far behind it, but more probably to give moral support. From such a quarter this meant a great deal. I had, for some reason, expected to find him a mechanizing man, to whom I would be required to hand over copious rudimentary enlightenment on subject indication questions, but this was quite wrong. It was I who soon found myself on the receiving end of the enlightenment process.

The history of post‐co‐ordinate indexing is one of trial and error in the face of poor results … Most thesauri seem very arbitrary in word selection and the extent of classification is equally arbitrary. FARRADANE The lack of semantic understanding, not even of a highly sophisticated level, by many other‐wise thoughtful workers in information retrieval is distressing… It may be hoped that the somewhat mystical aura which has been spread around the use of thesauri in literature searching, whether on purpose or by misunderstandings, will be dispersed in order to make room for a sober and down‐to‐earth discussion of the issue. BAR‐HILLEL

In a university, the mode of research is usually what is called ‘pure’ or ‘basic’ research; since I am keeping in mind primarily the applications of information science, I will prefer the word ‘basic’, although there is not so much difference. In such research, and really in any good research, one should not be collecting data haphazardly. One must isolate and define a problem and, as far as possible, control other conditions so that interfering factors are eliminated. Preferably one will narrow down the problem to manageable proportions. It is then essential to approach the problem with some sort of hypothesis or theory of the situation, and to concentrate on obtaining evidence for or against that hypothesis. The important task is to devise just that crucial experiment which will give the answer as efficiently as possible. If the answer disproves the hypothesis, one has at least further evidence upon which to construct a different hypothesis; if it confirms the hypothesis, one is ready for a further step forward, and so on. Research is easier in a fully controlled and reproducible situation; in a biological or human situation one must often have recourse to statistical methods, but this does not alter the general methodology. On the whole, I find a clear methodology lacking in much that is being done in the field of information science today.