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

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP57-00042A000200150013-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 27
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 13, 2000
• Sequence Number: 13
• Content Type: REPORT

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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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