A detailed chronology of the early, pre-Internet years of online information systems and services. Every field of history has a basic need for a detailed chronology of what happened: who did what when. In the absence of such a resource, fanciful accounts flourish. This book provides a rich narrative of the early development of online information retrieval systems and services, from 1963 to 1976—a period important to anyone who uses a search engine, online catalog, or large database. Drawing on personal experience, extensive research, and interviews with many of the key participants, the book describes the individuals, projects, and institutions of the period. It also corrects many common errors and misconceptions and provides milestones for many of the significant developments in online systems and technology.

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This study investigated various techniques for systematically abbreviating English words and names. Most of the attention was given to the techniques which could be mechanized with a digital device such as a general purpose digital computer. Particulal attention was paid to techniques that could process incoming information without prior knowledge of its existence (Le., no table lookups). Thirteen basic techniques and their modifications are described. In addition, most of the techniques were tested on a sample of several thousand subject words and several thousand proper names in order to provide a quantitative measure of comparison.