Topically-focused Data Archives: A New Paradigm for the Codification of Social Science Research

President, Sociometrics Corporation 3191 Cowper Street Palo Alto, California 94306 Tel. (415) 321-7846 The "information explosion" has become a distinguishing feature of modem science. Both the published scientific hterature and its supporting data files continue to grow at unprecedented rates. More than ever, it has become important that efficient ways be found to store available information on a given topic and then retrieve relevant portions of that information as they are required. In the 1970's enormous progress was made in the development of procedures to store and retrieve bibliographic information. The DIALOG, ERIC, and MEDLARS databases are but a small sample of the growing number of computerized bibliographic databases available to social