Using a general purpose microcomputer to aid the searching of bibliographic databases

This paper describes a system designed to utilise a general purpose microcomputer for online literature searching in place of a coventional terminal. A program (LIB) was written to enable search profiles, which have previously been stored in disk files on the microcomputer, to be sent to the host computer at the speed of the communication line. In addition, a log of the response from the host is stored in another disk file by LIB. LIB is described together with a ‘typical’ search that was run using both the search program and a conventional terminal. The times taken to run the search by both methods are given. It was found that substantial reductions in connection time can be made, and that using a microcomputer in this way need not restrict the interactive nature of online searching. A final advantage of this approach is that a general purpose microcomputer has many other applications. 7 references.