Enzymic oxidation of ethanolamine by beef serum.
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A cytochemical localization of reductive sites in a gram-positive bacterium. Tellurlte reduction in
Figure 5.
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capability, since 75 percent of the articles indexed for Index Medicus come from journals written in any of 30 or more foreign languages. Success in search and retrieval is directly proportional to adequacy and consistency in indexing. Although no complete test of the system's retrieval capability has yet been made, as I indicated earlier, we are highly encouraged by the results of measurements of relevance and recall.
I would agree with Dr. Brosin that medical subject headings constitute the major problems of any system such as ours. Glossaries and thesauri cannot be static if they are to reflect the advances of science. Our system, however, is designed to accept new terms, when they appear in the litera-ture, as provisional subject headings. Often, we have as many as 2,000
provisional subject headings entered into the computer tapes over and above those which appear in the printed medical subject headings list. I am not in agreement with Dr. Brosin's critique of the relationship of software to hardware, with specific reference to the field of behavioral sciences. I submit that it is extraordinarily difficult for psychiatrists to communicate with computers when psychiatrists have difficulty com-municating with psychiatrists. Quite earnestly, I view the major de-ficiencies in the medical subject headings list of the Library to fall in three areas: first, in the field of dentistry; second, in the field of behavioral sciences, as pointed out by Dr. Brosin; and third, in the field of drugs and chemicals. These deficiencies were recognized early and appeals were made to the professional societies representing these disciplines to assist the Library in updating the descriptors within these areas. We have had a vigorous response from the dental profession through the American Den-tal Association. They have provided two experts in the field who have been working with us. As a result of this effort, more than 200 new spe-cific dental terms will be introduced into our Medical Subject Headings List.
In the field of drugs and chemicals, we have had a very warm response from the Food and Drug Administration and there have been discussions with Chemical Abstracts to attempt to introduce more specific, more comprehensive terms in this important area. However, so far, we have had no response from the National Institute of Mental Health, which was requested to provide advice and assistance in this area. We plan to seek assistance from the American Psychiatric Association.
Librarians alone cannot develop authoritative medical subject headings lists. This is a task to be shared with the biomedical community. For this reason, I have come to the point of view that either the World Health Organization, or the Medical Division of the National Research Council of theN ational Academy of Sciences should undertake to stand-ardize medical nomenclature and classification, not only for the National Library of Medicine, but on behalf of all groups concerned with the management of biomedical literature.
Another weak point in the MEDLARS input subsystem has been the utilization of punched paper tape. Correction procedures using the paper tape are very cumbersome, and it has been difficult to keep the registration of the tape within the extremely small tolerance allowed by the paper-tape reader of the computer. Difficulty has also been encountered in re-cruiting and holding Flexowriter operators, who must type complex medical terminology on special equipment and yet are still classified as clerk-typists according to Civil Service standards. However, the Library is convinced that paper-tape is superior to punched-card processing for
HEALTH SCIENCES (MEDLARS) 119 the MEDLARS program, and we look to remote control console direct entry or optical scanning as a better long-range solution to the problem of input.
Another serious problem connected with MEDLARS has been the shortage of trained search specialists. This has necessarily limited the number of searches which can be formulated. Hence, full machine capability has not yet been approached. In fact, we reached only about 25 percent of the machine's operating capability due to the limited size of our search staff. It is hoped that this problem can, in part, be alleviated through the decentralization of MEDLARS. A contract has been nego-tiated with UCLA for the reprogramming and reconversion of Honeywell tapes for use on IBM 7090 and related equipment. We plan to establish six or eight university-based regional MEDLARS centers so that the means of access to, and retrieval of, the literature will be shared freely and extensively with the entire biomedical community.
Despite the problems mentioned above, we believe MEDLARS is unique in several respects. First, it is the only system of this type oper-ating in a research library in the medical field. It is also the only large-scale reference retrieval project based on a research library, thus provid-ing both bibliographic control and access to the documents themselves.
The problems of system engineering have been adequately solved, proving an operational reality, with an average of 700 new documents being proc-essed and put into the files each day. The total store of articles indexed is now 240,000. I think you would agree that the other unique feature of MEDLARS is its revolutionary printing capacity. We consider MEDLARS as only a first step. It will be constantly studied and revised to keep pace with new technical developments.
The National Library is now actively involved in research and develop-ment directed toward the use of data-processing equipdevelop-ment for other li-brary procedures such as acquisitions and cataloging. We hope to be perceptive, if not sensitive, to the consumer requirements. In this context, we have developed program plans to support specialized information cen-ters through MEDLARS services. The use of the system for support of medical education, continuing education, and the practice of medicine awaits exploitation.