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on tapes or disks, 
finitely large data 
er need not be limi- 
values or any prede- 
g responses to que¬ 
st em to organize 
desires. The system 
r a wide variety 
the user warning 
The query language of TAXIR is the language of Boolean 
algebra, fully generalized, so that the user may select subsets 
of the data bank for printout, usi ng any possible Boolean combi¬ 
nation of selection criteria. Thus, his queries may be very 
simple ones based on a single criterion, or may be as complex as 
he wishes, involving combinations of many such criteria. The use 
of parentheses and the operators NOT, AND, OR in Boolean express¬ 
ions is permitted. Boolean expressions, there fore, may be writ¬ 
ten by the user to select a single item from the data bank, any 
possible combination of items from the data bank, or, indeed, the 
entire data bank. This latter capability permits the printing of 
hierarchically structured representations of the entire data bank, 
which in the case of museum applications can be the catalogue. 
Since the hierarchical organization is under the user’s control, 
various hierarchical permutations of the catalogue may be created. 
For example, a catalogue ordered alphabetically on taxonomic name, 
a catalogue ordered alphabetically on geographical location, or 
a catalogue ordered numerically on catalogue number all are within 
the capability of the system. This same Boolean power permits the 
user to employ the querying language as a simultaneous key for the 
identification of unknowns.--David J. Rogers and R. C. Brill, 
Taximetries Lab., Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80302. 
RECENT LITERATURE 
Awad, E. M. £ Data Processing Management Association. 1970. 
Automatic Data Processing-Principles and Procedures. 
Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1970: xiv + 495. 
Brandt, S. Statistical and Computational Methods in Data 
Analysis. Elsevier, New York, 1970: xii + 322. 
Fraser, A. fi D. Burnell• Computer Mode1s in Genetics. McGraw 
Hill, New York, 1970: 1-206. 
Legendre, P. Circumscribing the concept of the genus. Taxon, 
vol. 20, 1971: 137-139. 
