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In-Office Retrieval of Literature with Microcomputers

Dep. of Agronomy, Oklahoma State Univ., Stillwater, OK 74078

D. B. Reynolds

Louisiana State Univ. Agric. Ctr., Northeast Exp. Stn., St. Joseph, LA 71366

^* Corresponding author.

Current literature searches or retrieval systems generally require strict appointment schedules with operating personnel and are limited to articles published after 1968. A complete data base and a program for rapidly searching the data base in the convenience of one's office would increase literature retrieval efficiency. A searching program and complete data base for the journals Weeds, Weed Science, and Weed Technology, were developed and combined into a total system named WeedLit. The software requirements include the data base "Citation" and the retrieval program "Litsearch." Hardware requirements include a computer capable of running MS-DOS or PC-DOS with a minimum of 512K bytes of RAM and a fixed disk with 4M bytes of free space for Citation. The data base contains all articles published in Weeds from 1952 to 1967, in Weed Science from 1968 to the present, and in Weed Technology from 1987 to the present. Each article in Citation consists of 10 fields containing information on the journal, author(s), title, year, volume, and page numbers, as well as crop(s), weed(s), pesticide(s), and keyword(s) that are pertinent to the content of the article. The LitSearch retrieval program was written in TurboPascal and is capable of rapidly searching the data base. Searches are conducted through the use of search units, which are composed of the field to be searched, a comparison operator, and the text to be searched for within the specified field. The LitSearch retrieval routine is capable of searching on any combination of up to 12 search units. Output options include three format types that can be directed to the screen, a printer, or an ASCII file. Retrieval times vary with complexity of the search as well as with computer model. Complex retrievals take approximately 6 min to complete on an IBM-PC but can be conducted in less than 2 min with an AT-type machine.

Received for publication February 22, 1988.