Selection of chemical-biological information from the literature is rarely a task which persons 

 with little or no academic background in the biological sciences can do adequately. This is perhaps 

 best realized only through experience. 



Examination of the literature for appropriate information amounts to considerably more than a 

 rapid and superficial scanning. While a considerable proportion of the data are revealed by the titles 

 of journal articles, they are by no means always apparent thereby and to select data, it is never 

 enough merely to examine a journal's table of contents. Having found data from chemical-biological 

 tests in the literature, it was necessary for the CBCC reviewer to be able to evaluate it, to note any 

 special problems that might be encountered in coding it and make provision for them, and to omit the 

 data representing information which he happened to recognize as having been placed in the CBCC files 

 already. 



In this process of selecting articles from the literature, the staff member recorded any selection 

 on a form especially designed for the purpose, referred to as an Assignment Sheet. A separate Assign- 

 ment Sheet was used for each journal (and frequently, for each issue), in order to be able to file the 

 Sheets later according to the name of the journal. All articles selected for assignment to coders were 

 entered on an Assignment Sheet, indicating the name of the journal, volume and issue numbers, and 

 date of issue; for each article selected, the Sheet carried the name of the author or authors, pages on 

 which the article appears, and any special instructions or admonitions for the article's coding. 



The Assignment Sheets were used also for any data other than that selected from the literature, 

 such as data from the Center's Screening Program which were assigned to coders for coding. 



Each Assignment Sheet was typed in triplicate, one copy being retained in a permanent file, 

 described in the previous section, under Miscellaneous Files. 



Assignment and Coding of Information : 



Most coding of information was done by persons not resident at the Center. Each applicant for 

 CBCC coding (as well as each prospective resident member of the professional staff) was required to 

 study the Biology Code and Key, perform some basic coding according to a set of typical coding 

 problems devised by the Center as a "Primer", and finally to submit a set of approximately 100 lines 

 of coded data from the literature. The applicant's suitability for CBCC coding was determined by the 

 results of the coding of the Primer problems and his first 100 lines. Many applicants were discouraged 

 by finding the analysis of data and its conversion to code a more difficult task than they had supposed, 

 others found that it required more concentrated periods of time than their schedules permitted, and 

 possibly some found the type of work not to their particular disposition. Most of the applicants and 

 many of those who coded regularly for the Center could contribute only part of their professional time 

 to the activity. All coders were persons with considerable biological academic backgrounds, many of 

 them possessing doctorates in their special biological fields. Of most significance, however, were 

 a basic interest in their particular field of biology, their familiarity with experimental methods and 

 statistics, and their ability to find coding a satisfying occupation. 



Compensation for coding was made on the basis of the number of code lines submitted; at least 

 fifty lines per month, as a practical minimum, was requested from each coder. If coding fell below 

 this minimum regularly, the coder's accuracy and CBCC efficiency was found to be also below a 

 practical level. It should be said also that, beyond the monetary compensation, many CBCC coders 

 found not a little incentive for their work in the knowledge that they were contributing to the Center 

 as a project with no precise precedent whose objectives they believed to be important. Further obser- 

 vations on the coders and the CBCC operational procedures are made in Appendix B. 



Every month, each coder received from the Center a coding assignment, selected from the 

 accumulated Assignment Sheets; the selection was tailored to the coder's special biological interests, 

 whether botanical, pharmacological, bacteriological, etc. This policy often needed modification for 

 reasons of inaccessibility of certain journals to a coder particularly qualified to code from them; 

 furthermore, because the scope of certain journals is very broad and because it was impractical to 

 complicate assignments further by making them on the basis of an article as an assignment unit rather 

 than an entire journal issue, the assignment of an entire issue of such a journal often confronted one 

 coder with articles of widely varied nature. Duplicates of the Assignment Sheets were retained at the 

 Center for a record. 



It was the coder's responsibility to obtain the journals containing the articles assigned for 

 coding. Being located geographically where journals are not readily available on loan was unfortunately 

 a situation ordinarily disqualifying a candidate for coding. 



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