4. "A COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEM 
FOR TAXONOMY" 
D. J. Rogers 
University of Colorado 
Boulder, Colorado 
5, "COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN TAXONOMIC LITERATURE* 
Gilbert S. Daniels 
Hunt Botanical Library 
Pittsburgh^ Pa. 
Bibliographical research at the Hunt Botanical Library 
on the early literature of botany has been organized to make 
maximum use of computer data handling. Lengthy citations 
for more than 25,OCX) volumes are stored on computer tapes end 
are updated and recollated ©s further research is carried out 
on each volume, Date on additional volumes can be merged ©s 
it becomes available. Sorting can be done on any category of 
information contained in the individual volume records with 
hard copy produced by the computer in a form suitable for 
direct publication by photo offset. Ancillary research projects 
not conceived of initially ©re greatly facilitated by the 
versatile access and sorting provided by the computer* 
ft 
Further applications end implications to taxonomic 
literature studies are discussed in this paper* 
6. "SOMc ASPECTS OF ON LINE INFORMATION RETRIEVAL LANGUAGES'* 
G.K, Hutchinson 
Computer Center 
Texas Technological College 
Lubbock. Texas. 
» * 
Information retrieval techniques of interest to museums 
include: l) KWIC, 2) Current Awareness, 3) Qwick Qwery, ^and 
4) On Line Dialogues. The on-line search is potentially the 
most powerful, but requires considerable effort end thoughtful 
consideration as to its language design, hardware configuration 
end, perhaps more important, the matching of the language to 
the hardware vie the software implementation. Retrieval techniques 
will be briefly reviewed. Implementation considerations and 
evaluation criteria will be discussed. 
?. "TELECOMMUNICATION AND ON LINE ACCESS TO COMPUTERS" 
Nicholes J. Suszynski 
Smithsonian Institution 
Washington, D.C. 
Direct access to the computer from the deskside of a user who has m 
need to process his data on a computer is highly desirable. Several 
manufacturers moke remote terminals for the computers which facilitate such 
interaction. Video data terminals (basically a television tube with a 
typewriter keyboard) connected to & computer by way of a telephone line la 
by far the best method devised as yet for inputting data to the computer 
and for making requests against the computer based data bank. Video data 
terminals ere also considerably faster and generally more accurate than other 
meens of inputting data (keypunches, verifiers etc.). If this is the case, 
why then arsn ? t they used more widely?. 
There ©re several reasons for scarcity of remote usage end the two mejor 
ones ©re discussed in depth. Despite the pressure from the computer industry 
and the users, the common carrier monopoly is slow in improving its tele¬ 
communication capability. The common carriers 10 ♦ 10 cycle (ten years In 
development followed by ten years of manufacturing as compared to computer 
industry of 5*5) will continue into the forseeable future. This means that 
current characteristics of the communication channel will change very slowly 
(noise level, frequency response, capacity of channel etc.]/ ‘ 
+** * - ^ 
Also? since 'the users of computer data banks will be separate., 'jcsa .. 
their computers by tens and hundreds and often thousands of miles, economic 
impact of the telecommunication costs is crucial. The technology of data 
transmission is discussed only briefly end main concentration is on economic 
aspects of it, showing with slides and charts costs of various lines in -• -• 
relation to the distance® 
9~ • 
• 
The second major obstacle to remote multi-processing is the scarcity 
the computer systems (hardware end software) capable of economic processing 
n the foreground of remote messages, and in the babkground of batch processing 
the normal load of the data center (such things as updating of the files with 
most current information etc*}. There are isolated exceptions to this, and 
they ere in the area of dedicated systems; systems that ers offered for a 
special mission such as airline reservation systems, or a demand deposit 
accounting system in the banking industry, or general purpose systems having 
few options with many limitations which normally are offered in a large city 
in order to capitalize on the relatively low cost of the telephone usage. These 
general purpose systems are usually offered by the - service bureaus., 
* 
The paper will strive to show that nation-wide computer utility with 
direct, access to various data barks, although technologically feasible, ia 
not economical as yet. That the biggest single cost, in addition to the 
initial data conversion needed to establish the date bank, is the cost of data 
transmission. That because of it, these networks will form at first in th® 
large cities when? the cost of a local telephone cell is negligible. In the 
immediate future (2 to 3 years), rather advanced end economical time—shared 
systems will be available within cities* Their use outside the city will depend 
largely on the size of the telephone bill that will come with it. An overview 
of currently available commercial systems will be presented. 
