TITAN: an information management system for faster retrieval from massive databases using signatures

TITAN is an information management environment designed for fast retrieval of records from extremely large (several million records) collections of data. It provides unlimited multi‐key retrieval and, unlike most retrieval systems, the more terms specified in the query the faster the query is performed. This paper describes the facilities provided by TITAN, explains the underlying theory of signature files behind it and analyses its strengths and weaknesses relative to other tools on the market.