National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Area 6: Organization of Information for Storage and Retrospective Search: Possibility for a general theory
Page 1273 Cite
Suggested Citation:"Proposed Scope of Area 6." National Research Council. 1959. Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Information: Two Volumes. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10866.
×

PROPOSED SCOPE OF AREA 6

THE IMPORTANCE OF formulating a general theory to describe systems for the storage of information and subsequent search for retrieval justifies an investigation of the assumption that storage and search systems have enough in common to enable the development of a general theory. Without such a theory our efforts are directed to the empirical description of different devices which happen to get developed.1

But when we attempt to develop a general theory, our research is directed toward the discovery of common characteristics, common methods of functioning, common purposes, and common types of logical organization. When these common notions have been isolated and defined, it should be possible to account for the difference between the various systems and devices in quantitative rather than qualitative terms.

It follows that the first work to be done is the identification of a group of concepts which have a common relevance to all storage and retrieval systems. As examples of such concepts we can suggest: A, relatedness or connectivity of documents in a collection along with a suitable metric to define the degree of relatedness; B, storage space requirements; C, number of dimensions of access to a file; D, access time; E, coding efficienty. Hence it would be appropriate, in Area 6, to have papers that isolate and define such common parameters of storage and retrieval systems. It would be highly desirable if reasonable models of retrieval systems could be set up and analyzed, and if similarities between these models and models of different kinds of systems that have already been studied could be exploited. In this way it might be possible to make use of techniques that already exist in such studies as linguistics and information theory.

It is to be hoped that the search for quantitative relations among the basic concepts and the achievement of a theory of storage and retrieval systems will be able to predict new properties of such systems. If this can be done, any attempt at experimental verification of these properties would be an appropriate topic for papers, as would be any experimental investigation of the reasonableness of the fundamental postulates of the theory.

1  

The proposed scope of the Conference Area, as shown here, was prepared during the Spring and Summer of 1956 and provided to all potential contributors as a guide to the aims of the Conference.

Page 1274 Cite
Suggested Citation:"Proposed Scope of Area 6." National Research Council. 1959. Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Information: Two Volumes. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10866.
×

Thus we have three sub-areas for papers in this general area:

  1. Papers concerned with identifying, describing, and relating the basic concepts in the field of storage and retrieval theory.

  2. Papers concerned with formal techniques of analyzing such systems.

  3. Papers concerned with the systematic mathematical development and experimental verification of the theory. Perhaps it may be too ambitious to expect papers in the third area until work has gone forward in the other two.

Page 1273 Cite
Suggested Citation:"Proposed Scope of Area 6." National Research Council. 1959. Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Information: Two Volumes. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10866.
×
Page 1273
Page 1274 Cite
Suggested Citation:"Proposed Scope of Area 6." National Research Council. 1959. Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Information: Two Volumes. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10866.
×
Page 1274
Next: The Structure of Information Retrieval Systems »
Proceedings of the International Conference on Scientific Information: Two Volumes Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

The launch of Sputnik caused a flurry of governmental activity in science information. The 1958 International Conference on Scientific Information (ICSI) was held in Washington from Nov. 16-21, 1958 and sponsored by NSF, NAS, and American Documentation Institute, the predecessor to the American Society for Information Science. In 1959, 20,000 copies of the two volume proceedings were published by NAS and included 75 papers (1600 pages) by dozens of pioneers from seven areas such as:

  • Literature and reference needs of scientists
  • Function and effectiveness of A & I services
  • Effectiveness of Monographs, Compendia, and Specialized Centers
  • Organization of information for storage and search: comparative characteristics of existing systems
  • Organization of information for storage and retrospective search: intellectual problems and equipment considerations
  • Organization of information for storage and retrospective search: possibility for a general theory
  • Responsibilities of Government, Societies, Universities, and industry for improved information services and research.

It is now an out of print classic in the field of science information studies.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!