PROGRESS IN DOCUMENTATION: THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRECIS: A THEORETICAL AND TECHNICAL HISTORY

Before starting to trace the development of PRECIS to its theoretical beginnings I shall describe the system briefly in its present form. This will serve not only as an introduction for those who are not familiar with the system, but will also help to explain the relevance of some of the historical sections which follow, in which we shall see how a machine‐produced alphabetical indexing system, based on a syntax derived from a study of natural language, developed out of research into principles for a new general classification.