COLLECTION OF SUBJECT HEADING LISTS, CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS AND OTHER INFORMATION.

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Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP57-00042A000200150013-8
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RIPPUB
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K
Document Page Count: 
27
Document Creation Date: 
December 9, 2016
Document Release Date: 
June 13, 2000
Sequence Number: 
13
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Content Type: 
REPORT
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Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 APPENDIX VIII COLLECTION OF SUBJECT HEADING LISTS, CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS AND OTHER INFORMATION STATINTL summary. Approximately six weeks were devoted to personal visits to a number of establishments. A brief account is given of each of these visits and lists are provided (see Appendix B) of material which was either collected for immediate use or noted as being of eventual interest. Visits to tht Patent Office and to the Welch Medical Library of Johns Hopkins University provided an opportunity to become acquainted with their use of IBM equipment in studying problems of classification and indexing. Organizations Visited September 26 - October 11, 1951 U. S. Patent Office - (B. E. Lanham, Classification Examiner, and. George Leibowitz, Patent Examiner). Most of the time during this two-week period was spent at the Patent Office, thoroughly studying the mechanized indexing research project there. Background on the problems peculiar to patent examining was provided. by the following: "History of Classi- fication of'Patents" by M. F. Bailey and "The Classification of Patents (2nd Revision)", a publication of the Patent Office, and two papers presented by the group before meetings of the Division of Chemical Literature of the ACS, namely, "The Use of the U. S. Patent Office Classification in Chemical Searches" and "Mechanized Searching in the U. S. Patent Office". Many long and fruitful conferences were conducted by Mr. Lnnhaam. A complete report of this study of the Patent' Office system is attached as Appendix A. Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 U. S. Dept. of Agriculture Library - (Ralph R. Shaw, Librarian). A morning was spent at the library discussing the Rapid Selector with Dr. Shaw. The ed.vante.ges of the machine were enumerated - speed of searching and instantaneous repro- duction of desired material, for example. Dr. Shaw said he codes his material randomly, that is, he assigns consecutive numbers to bibliographic entries arranged alphabetically. These numbers are then entered on the code half of the film, adjacent to the micro reproduction of the material. Searching for combinations of concepts necessitates multiple searches, one for each concept desired. There does not seem to be much study underway on coding possibilities, but research is being done on improving the machine itself - speeding up the photocopying process, simpli- fying the input program, etc. Dr. Shaw showed us the Selector, and ran a test pattern for us. National Bureau of Standards - (W. A. Wildhack, Physicist). The group studying basic instrumentation for scientific research brifly outlined the program they are undertaking to classify and index the subject matter of their specialized field. Doctor Keinath is compiling a dictionary of instrumentation under their direction. Our discussion was short and incomplete. Mr. Stern, information director, is interested in the develop- ment of new machines for searching the literature, and Dr. Wildhack is interested in our terminology studies. It would be advantageous to plan another visit with these people in the near future. National Institutes of Health - (Scott Adams, Librarian). At luncheon with a group of methods-research people and the librarian of NIH, classification problems and philosophies were discussed. The project of the Research Planning Council which attempted to identify the content of research in various laboratories and classify it by methods of research was outlined. Personnel of the Council felt that discussion with about classifica- STATINTL tion and organization ,night help this project in its work. Navy Library - (Mrs. Ruth Hooker, Coordinator of Navy Libraries). The filing system of the Navy's libraries is peculiarly adapted to the libraries' problems and their use by Navy personnel. As Mrs. Hooker explained, they are "short on science and. technology" but strong in such subjects as military tactics and naval history. Mrs. Hooker suggested that we write to thu Secretary of the Navy requesting a copy of the, Navy Filing Manual, which has the standard subject headings for administration, Navy history, military science, logistics, etc., as used in the Department's installations. Research and Devela mcnt Board - (Cedric Flagg, Technical Information Office.) The personnel at RDB were most helpful in answering queries concerning subject heading lists and classi- fication schemes. Mr. Flagg and Mrs. Helen Brownson made available a large supply of such material, which was examined Approved For Release 2000/08/252: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 and noted for our acquisition. (See Appendix B). The RDB has an IBM system which operates with confidential material.. Mr. Lowry, librarian at the Army Library, was also visited in the Pentagon. He expressed great interest in our program of research. Library of _Congress, Navy Research Section - (Robert Bray, Assistant Director). Mr. Bray and Mrs. Janet Snyder provided a large collection of material, most of which had already been located elsewhere. A few valuable new references showed up. (See Appendix B). The make-up and processing of TIP, Techni- cal Information Pilot, publication of the Section, was described and shown in detail. Also, the services of the Section in answering requests for information about Navy research projects was discussed. Mr. Bray is continuing to send pertinent refer- cances to u.s. He suggests our bibliography of subject heading lists, glossaries, etc., be printed. in SLA Washington Chapter Notes, for possible additions by members of the Chapter. National Pain.tVarnish and Lacquer Issocietion - (.Hobert Ware, Librsrian3 . This is an interesting example of a trade association library, small and highly specializced but very active. Mr. Ware made avc.ilaa..ble copies of the subject heading list he has compiled for the industry and. its information facilities. Chemical-BioloFicn.l. Coordination Ce ntex N~tionul research Council.. - W^.lter R. Kirner, Director.T The eneroical and biological. codes developed by this Center for use on punched cards in correlating data were explained and illustrated in a series of informal discussions with Dr. Harriet Geer, chemist, and Mrs. Anne Williams, biologist. The CBCC was started in 1.9+6, and serves as a clearing agency for correlating data on the biological action of chemicals on biological systems. Data is gathered from three sources: new chemicals sent out by the Center to testing agencies, unpublished data sent to the Center by coops Eating encies, and data published in journals. No searching is done except in answer to questions sent in to the Center. The checic,l code, published by the National Research Coun- cil as "A Method of Coding Chemicals for Correlation and Classi- fication" was based on the work of Frear and Seiferle. The biology code, entirely new, has been developed through five editions, which seems most satisfactory, has not been n3. the final form, published yet. The Center -assigns a serial number to the chemicals as received. This niuroer is entered on the card in which the chemical code for the compound is punched, and on the card on Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 which the codes for biological action are recorded. Since the serial number is also entered on the original data sheets in the master file, all material dealing with a compound is quick- ly found. The Center operates its system expertly and efficiently with IBM standard tabulating equipment. Mr. Ballard, who manages the machine operations and card. files, demonstrated the particular manner in which he handles his cards. At the present time, the chemical structures of about 30,000 coepounds are recorded on IBM cards. Mr. Ballard pre-files the cards under each of the chemical group codes used to describe the complete structure. Since there are on the average five groups per compound, the chemical file now contains approximately 150,000 cards. The biological code file, much newer and therefore much smaller at the moment, is also pre-filed according to sections such as action, organism, tissue, organ, etc. Pre-filing insures that a smaller number of cards need to be handled in answering any question. As a matter of fact, some questions can be answered by eye-scanning a small set of cards in one of the pre-filed sections, or by comparison of one such batch against another, without recourse to machine selection at all. P rn - filing also enables multiple-facet questions to be answered in spite of the limitations of the standard tabulating equip- ment which is used. For example, a structure with groups A and B can be found by sorting for Group B on all cards pre- filed under group A. -4 Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042A000200150013-8 rgf.nizations Visited October 1'j - October 19, 1951 Enginec-rii:g Library - (Ralph Phelps, Librarian). This well-equipped library scrv:s members of the societies and visitors. The card index file is large and arranged by subject categories. There is also an alphabetical index and a.n author index to material hold by the library. The subject headings of the classified index might prove helpful to us as a sup- plement of other subject heading lists. H. W. Wilson Company - (Charles J. Shaw, Editorial Staff). rfl Wilson Company, publisher of various guides and indexes to periodical literature, maintains its own priiltiug est~Lblish- zrent in conjunction with its editorial offices. Their subject headings, main.tair~ed in active files rather thin as printed lists, were for the most part too general and non-technical for our interest. The visit to their building was iiiteresting for general information about their activities. En ineering Index _ (George Poock, Staff Mamber). This was another visit of little irunediate profit but of general interest. Mr. Poock was intrigued by the scope of our research project and. impressed with its possibilities. He reviewed the references to subject heading lists, classification schemes, and glossaries of terms which we bad collected. His opinion was that we had gathered all the important material, but promised to send on to us any further references which he might find. N. Y. Public Library - (Thomas Thomson, Science -Technology Division . The card files of the Science-Technology Division yielded a few more references for our subject headings and. cla.ssi:'ication schemes lists, (See Appendix B), and our bib- liography of glossaries of t?:rris and scientific dictionaries was inmeasurabiy helped when Mr. Thomson showed his personal. card file of glossaries. This collection, which occupies two standard file drawers, has complete references to works pub- lished up to about fifteen years ago, and incomplete notes about more recent acquisitions. Im.complete in this connection means that such data as the name of the publisher or a sununary table of contents might be lacking from the card. The collection includes scientific and technical books which have glossaries of terms included in their contents, as well as complete dictionaries. Mr. Thomson perruitted copying of pertinent references from the file (See Appendix C), and promised continued help at any time we wish to call upon him. Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042A000200150013-8 Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 Calco Chemical Division, American Cyanamid Co. - (Miss Betty J. Cole, Librarian). This industrial library is very well organized and maintained by Miss cole and her staff. They use standard card files and alphabetical indexing which proves satisfactory for them. However, Miss Cole said many scientists maintain individual punched-card files at their desks. As for subject heading lists, Miss Cole felt we had obtained all the important references. She provided a copy of "A List of Sub- ject Headings for Chemistry Libraries" for our collection, and later sent excerpts from her own subject heading list, sections which she had expanded and modified for the library's special needs. This will be of interest to us as we work with various sections of our own subject heading list. Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042AO00200150013-8 Approved For Release 2000/08/25: CIA-RDP57-00042A000200150013-8 r^. Organizations Visited October 22 - November 14+, 1951 Welch Medical Library - (Dr. Sanford V. Larkey, Librarian). At Welch Medical Library attention was devoted almost exclusive- ly to their subject heading list which was being compiled for the "Current List of Medical Literature", published at the Army Medical Litrcry. The terminal report of the project, dated J?riuary 31, 1951, describes the scope of the research in medical literature to be undertaker., -..s well as the background and need for such research. But at the time of my visit, the subject heading list to be used from J