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It is a pleasure, as a visitor to your country, to find myself invited to talk to this audience about information retrieval. The invitation, as it came to me, contained the implication that there was a considerable curiosity here about my activities in this field in the United States. Some preliminary reconnoitring before the meeting convinced me that this was indeed the case. Your curiosity, then, furnishes me with an excellent excuse to talk about a number of things that I have been doing over the past few years.

Without prejudice to the requirements of the other uses of classification, the following conclusions and recommendations are made from the point of view of information retrieval.

Prior to implementing computerised pattern alterations for figuration on a commercial CAD system, a large database with reference to the standard graded patterns, the alteration movements and relevant information needs to be generated. There are many difficulties in creating grade rules and alteration movements, especially for the bust suppression and the shaped sleeve. In order to obtain sophisticated patterns with a good fit for MTM (made‐to‐measure) clothing, the authors' pattern alteration technique is a combination of pattern design construction and grading. The procedure is divided into ten stages and the practical verification was carried out in the form of seven case studies. In addition, drafting rules on the MicroFit system for automatic pattern generation are demonstrated by converting the numerical grade rules created on the GGT AccuMark system into body‐related formulae.

A number of over‐lapping terms have been applied to coding techniques used in association with post‐co‐ordinate indexing. These include subcodes, which can be interpreted as the generic term; superimposed, graphic and random coding and Zatocoding, which are nearly synonymous; and partial or derived coding: the last named may be considered as a bridge between the second group (superimposed, etc.) and direct coding techniques. For the sake of consistency, the terms graphic coding and partial coding will be employed wherever possible. The general principles of coding have been adequately reviewed in C. P. Bourne's Methods of Information Handling and have been subjected to detailed analysis in J. L. Jolley's Data Study. Graphic codes have been studied in considerable depth in the above; therefore, a brief introduction will suffice.

We deal here with some problems of superimposed random coding that arise when marking codes into the codefield. Our investigations are concerned with a general model. Systems used in practice are special cases of this, and may be deduced from it by making appropriate simplifying assumptions. We give exact formulas for the distribution of the marked sites in a codefield and for the distribution of multiple marking of a site. These results are obtained by applying a general theorem in probability due to K. Jordan. Some acquaintance with superimposed random coding and knowledge of basic combinatorial and probability theory are assumed.

Although personal information files must seem small fry alongside the large information centres, the accumulated frustration and waste of time associated with them must, on account of their very great number, far outweigh that found in the larger centres. For this reason, it is suggested that greater attention might be given to the problems of the small file user by the professional information officer. With this in view it was thought desirable to give an account of one such small file, the problems associated with it and the attempts at solving these problems. The file to be described is one containing a very wide and diverse range of subjects—chemistry, physics, economics, mathematics, logic, etc.—such as is required for use by a worker in applied science. It is this very width of interest which creates the major problems in setting up and operating such a file.

The possibility of integrating building information in an augmented reality (AR) environment provides an effective solution to all phases of a building's lifecycle. This paper explores the integration of building information modelling (BIM) and AR to effectively visualise building information models in an AR environment and evaluates the currently available AR tools.

A BIM model of a selected office room was created and superimposed to the actual physical space using two different AR devices and four different AR applications. The superimposing techniques, accuracy and the level of information that can be visualised were then investigated by performing a walk-through analysis.

From the investigation, it can be concluded that model positioning can be inaccurate depending on the superimposing method used and the AR device. Moreover, using the currently available techniques, only static building information can be superimposed and visualised in AR, showing a need to integrate data from Internet of Things (IoT) sensors into the current BIM-AR processes to allow visualisation of accurate and high-quality operational building information.

A practical process and method for visualising and superimposing BIM models in an AR environment have been described. Recommendations to improve superimposing accuracy are provided. The assessment of type, quality and level of detail that can be visualised indicates the areas that need improvement to increase the effectiveness of building information's visualisation in AR.

Two types of linear on‐line search have been implemented on a data base of 100,000 INSPEC records, and compared with an inverted search program on the same file. It was found that the linear search which does a character‐by‐character scan of the whole file was too slow to be useful as an on‐line search, but that the second linear search, which uses a linear file of keys to select records for full scanning, was useable on‐line. An algorithm suitable for the on‐line searching of the linear file of keys is presented with run time nearly independent of the number of terms in the search query. Neither of the linear searches can compete with an inverted search in terms of user convenience, but they do not require as complex file‐maintenance software, they use less processing time to build indexes, and they have lower storage requirements than inverted files.

This paper provides an introduction to the use of n‐grams in textual information systems, where an n‐gram is a string of n, usually adjacent, characters extracted from a section of continuous text. Applications that can be implemented efficiently and effectively using sets of n‐grams include spelling error detection and correction, query expansion, information retrieval with serial, inverted and signature files, dictionary look‐up, text compression, and language identification.

The search for an easily installed, practicable and inexpensive information retrieval system continues unabated. This is reflected in the Aslib Library almost daily by requests for advice on the feasibility of installing this or that system, or for information on what systems are available in Great Britain. Study of the following bibliography, which covers only a narrow selection of information retrieval systems, will reveal that much original thought has been producing concrete results in this country. In fact, one of the earliest references is to a paper given at the twenty‐second Aslib Conference in 1947 by W. E. Batten, in which he describes his development of an ‘aspect’ card system—more often referred to today as ‘Peek‐a‐boo’ or ‘feature’ cards. Mr C. W. Cleverdon's Cranfield project is also adding considerable knowledge on the use of various indexing methods, including Uniterm.