Fifteen other gardens are preparing to enter their records into the 
system. The expectation is that at the end of ten years, over 150 
collections covering one million plant records will be in the 
system. 
Original data are gotten from the garden or arboretum by 
microfilming their existing accession records which are usually 
in the form of card files. A team from PRC visits the garden, 
sequence numbers their cards and microfilms them using a portable 
microfilming device which produces cartridges. In preparing data 
for conversion to machine-readable form, family names are coded 
using Gould's system although the plain text family name is now 
also carried in the record. The data are converted to machine- 
readable form using a keypunch or a Honeywell keytape system. 
All data are captured in upper case. The operator works directly 
from the microfilm using a microfilm reader. She skips informa¬ 
tion which she cannot decipher and makes notes on botanical or 
editorial help which she will need to complete the record. 
After the records have been converted to machine readable 
form, a card image listing is made and edited at PRC. A listing, 
including all corrections made at PRC, is returned to the garden 
for final review. Their corrections are made and the data are 
added to the data bank. PRC makes no taxonomic decisions on the 
data received. They do check names for proper form. A wide va¬ 
riety of reports can be prepared from the data bank. 
Forms have been developed which participating gardens will 
use in the future to maintain their own accession files and to 
transmit new records to PRC. New records and corrections and 
deletions of existing records will be entered into the system in 
a batch periodically.--Harriet R. Meadow. 
RECENT LITERATURE 
Biss, K., R. Chien, & F. Stahl. R2—A natural language question¬ 
answering system. AFIPS Conference Proceedings, vol. 38, 
1971s 303-308. 
David, E. E. Computing from the Communication Point of View. 
Advances in Computers, vol. 10, 1970: 109-128. 
Eddy, A. A meteorologically oriented computer model of an ecosystem 
Transactions New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 31, 1969: 
618-628. 
Emshoff, J. R. & R. L. Sisson. Design and Use of Computer 
Simulation Models. MacMillan, New York, 1970: xvii +302. 
(Devoted almost entirely to simulation of business problems. 
Practically no use to MUDPIErs.) 
