The semantic code today
John L. Melton · American Documentation · 1962
Abstract A sampling of the file of encoded abstracts of technical articles produced for the information retrieval system in operation at the Center for Documentation and Communication Research at Western Reserve University has been analyzed for the incidence of terms which had not yet appeared in the semantic code dictionary. Also analyzed was the incidence of generic concepts of different classes appearing in the file and in questions programmed for machine searches of the file. This analysis indicated that while new terms now appear, and will presumably continue to appear from time to time, their incidence is remarkedly low except when an entirely new field is entered. It was further indicated that, as would be expected, the file of encoded metallurgical abstracts concerns itself with a wide range of generic concepts concentrated, however, on specified objects, materials, states, and conditions. Finally, the analysis suggests that these areas of concentration tend to be those most frequent in questions.