Planning and design of on-line systems for the ultimate user of biomedical information

摘要

Following a general discussion on the philosophy and design of information systems, with particular attention to the definition, needs and psychology of the ultimate user of systems providing on-line access to biomedical information, the role of the documentalist, the differences between document retrieval and true information retrieval and the operational characteristics of on-line systems which affect their cost and hence their design and acceptability, the authors make some tentative predictions as to the future demand for such information retrieval services and their probable organizational form. A brief report is then presented on the principal findings and conclusions of a user's study of the Excerpta Medica system, the key features and history of which are briefly described. Based on the conclusions of this study, particularly as regards the complexity of the average search question, the role of the search formulators in determining the results of computer searching, the importance of secondary concepts for retrieval and the optimal level of specificity of a computer thesaurus, some of the changes in the Excerpta Medica system which are in the planning stage and will be incorporated into the system's Mark II version are outlined, as are the principal features of the two systems currently offering on-line access to the Excerpta Medica database in Western Germany and the U.S.A. Finally, attention is given to the planned partial hierarchic structuring of the Excerpta Medica thesaurus (Malimet), a project which is to be based largely on frequency counts of the existing database and the elimination of over-specific terms by posting under broader concepts. The results of some of the initial steps in this direction (i.e. frequency counts of portions of the database and the structuring of some of the terms used in the cancer field) are presented by way of illustration.