Automatic information retrieval (Tutorial and Panel Discussion)

Information files of all kinds are now in common use—personnel records, parts inventories, customer account information, business correspondence, document holdings in libraries, patient records in hospitals, and so on. Information retrieval systems are designed to help analyze and describe the items stored in a file, to organize them and search among them, and finally to retrieve them in response to a user's query. Designing and using a retrieval system involves four major activities: information analysis, information organization and search, query formulation, and information retrieval and dissemination. The tutorial and panel discussion are designed to examine the current developments in the field and to point the way to the future. The emphasis in the discussion will be placed on modern on-line retrieval services, automatic indexing and abstracting and novel text matching systems.