Excerpta Medica Automated Storage and Retrieval Program of Biomedical Information. Excerpta Mark I System.

This is a report of the international operations of the Excerpta Medica Foundation whose aim is to further the progress of medical knowledge by making information available to the medical and related professions on all significant basic research and clinical findings reported in any language, anywhere in the world. To accomplish this task, Excerpta Medica set up an international biomedical communication system, with headquarters in Amsterdam, to screen, evaluate, classify, translate, abstract and index the relevant scientific literature as it appears. Its English-language Abstracting Journals, devoted to the basic medical sciences and all major clinical specialties, are based on worldwide coverage of the biomedical literature. More than 3,000 serials in the biomedical field constitute the source material for the Foundation's data bank and its Abstracting Journals. This represents almost 20,000 individual journal issues received annually. Before processing and abstracting these journal issues are microfilmed and placed in the microfiche library. A staff of translators is on hand to provide translations of medical texts from any language into any other at nominal rates. The Foundation's 33 Abstract Journals are all completely computer-processed, including subject and author indexes cumulated annually. A detailed classification system is used to arrange the abstracts. (Author/RM)