Remote text access in a computerized library information retrieval system

As part of the Intrex experiments with a computerized model library, we are developing an experimental system for accessing the full text of the 10,000 journal articles in the Intrex data base. The essential result of the user dialog with the augmented catalog is the identification of those articles selected as relevant to the user's inquiries. The next step in the library-usage process is to retrieve the text of these articles for reading. The convenience, response time, and quality of the text-access system is likely to affect the extent to which the user negotiates with the catalog before requesting full text. The Intrex system will permit experimentation with the complete machine-aided library operation. The purpose of this paper is to outline the text access problems and our approach to them.