THE RELATIONSHIP OF INFORMATION-USE STUDIES AND THE DESIGN OF INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS

Abstract
A review is presented of the results of past studies of the information-gathering methods of workers in various fields, and the general applicability of these results to the design and improvement of information programs and systems is shown. Two cases from the literature are used to illustrate storage and retrieval systems that do and do not meet the requirements of their users, and to show the contrasting need of the pure scientist for mere references to information and of the applied scientist for direct access to actual information. The applied scientist is shown to require the services of large storage and retrieval programs manned by highly trained personnel, while the pure scientist is best served by a conventional library in which the publications are arranged on the basis of a classification scheme reflective of the scientist's customary association of subjects. Low redundancy in manual and machine systems is cited as a means of improving input and output. Differences in the required information coverage of systems serving pure scientists, applied scientists, and social scientists and humanists are indicated, with the pure scientist requiring a narrow collection going back comparatively far in time, the applied scientist requiring both depth and breadth. Investigations of the various media used by user groups to communicate and obtain different kinds of information are advanced as a further means of knowing what should and should not be put into a storage and retrieval system.

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