[Sigcr-l] Re: Question

[Johny Johnson]

Once again, greetings to all.

I'd like to thank you, especially to all of you who answered me. And thanks for your patience too, I will not disturb this conference for a long time. I've recieved some interesting information about my topic. And some of you required more info about my question, so here it is.

The thing about PRECIS is my work to school. I am a student of "Informatic Sciences and Librarianship" on Charles University, here in Czech Republic (I hope my translation is at least close to reality)...
Anyway, we've recieved a task to write some kind of work or essay on one of three topics: (again, I'l try to translate it as close as possible)
1. Natural language as a information retrieval tool in multilingual world
2. PRECIS as a time conditioned attempt at rational (efficient) classification
3. Using of a facets approach to creation of an classification system (or framework)

To be honest, all three topics are terrible and I was quite sure that I will have problems writing one or two pages (but our professor require 10+ pages). So I've chosen point 2 about PRECIS, because I've expected it will not be a problem. Well, I was wrong...

First, I triet to find something on the internet (especially Google). Keyword "PRECIS" was useless, because I've recieved thousands of non relevant things. Whole string "Preserved context indexing system" gave better results, but mostly references in bibilography or short allusions.
So I went to a library and I searched in databases like Web of Science (WOS), JSTOR, EBSCO, Wiley InterScience or Encyklopedia of Library and Information Science (ELIS). Perhaps it was caused by my bad skills in searching, but mostly I haven't found anything interesting. Again, keyword "precis" was useles (it gave me everything with "presicion" and so on) and whole "preserved context..." usually gave me no results. From time to time, I found something (sometimes even something really interesting), but:
Like in Google, PRECIS was mentioned mostly in bibliography, like welll known "PRECIS: Manual of Concept Analysis and Subject Indexing" by Derek Austin. And from other articles I found only an abstract, without link to fulltext. (e.g. Brian Burnham: PRECIS Indexing... this interesting article is available only on microfiches and fulltext is only i Toronto). And there was a language barrier as well. I can speak only English (well as you can see, I am not perfect not even in it), therefore German or Frechch articles are useless for me...

I became a bit desperate. Apparently I am unable to find enough information about that topic, I told to myself. Then I tried a last attepmt. I somewhere found a link to this conference (few times I noticed in Google results word "sigcr" in articles with word "PRECIS") - so I decided to go "right to the source". Then I subscribed on pages http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigcr-l an 'voila' - I am here.

So, that was my story. A bit long, but my search was long as well. So once again I'd like to thank you for your help, I am sure I will find something new thanks to your information (I havent checked that yet, because I got up a hour ago and since that time, I am writing this epos :o)

So, I really appreciate your help. And now I am going to continue with my search.

Yours sincerely 

Johny

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