A Comparison of Manual and Computer Searches of the Chemical Evolution and Origin of Life Literature.

Parallel machine and manual literature searches on the subject of chemical evolution and the origin of life were compared on six characteristics: (1) precision, (2) recall, (3) novelty, (4) uniqueness, (5) time cost per citation, and (6) dollar cost per citation. The manual search outperformed the machine on precision, novelty, uniqueness, and dollar cost per citation although this was based on partial cost data for the manual search. There was little difference in recall between the two methods. For this subject area, "Chemical Abstracts", "International Aerospace Abstracts", and the Automatic Subject Citation Alert service were found to be the most effective sources for overall recall precision, novelty, and uniqueness. RECON and MEDLARS were found to be the most efficient in terms of times and costs. The study concludes that while the manual search had a slightly better overall performance, both modes are necessary for a comprehensive multi-disciplinary literature survey. (JG)