Scientific research serving the needs of SINTO

Abstract

The presidency of the Polish government passed a resolution in 1974 concerning the development of information in the period of 1974 to 1980, giving high priority to the establishment of the national system of scientific, technical and organizational information (SINTO). The National Centre for Scientific, Technical and Economic Information (Centrum Informacji Naukowej, Technicznej i Ekonomicznej, CINTE) is entrusted with the organization of the system, while the Institute for Scientific, Technical and Economic Information (Instytut Informacji Naukowej, Technicznej i Ekonomicznej, IINTE) is responsible for its scientific prepaiation and scientific foundations. Research and development necessary at the initial stage falls into three main directions: application of computer technology, basic research, methodological and organizational questions. The objective of the first main direction is the automation of the special information systems and branch information systems. The most important fields of basic research include information retrieval languages, automatic indexing, automatic thesaurus-building and automatic optimalization of retrieval programmes. Methodological and organizational questions refer to the investigation of users' needs, the efficiency of the system, legal problems etc.