CD-ROM text indexing and retrieval systems which help alleviate information overload

Abstract

This paper seeks to show how technical developments in the authoring and indexing of CD-ROMs can help alleviate information overload. It begins by outlining the history of text indexing and retrieval before detailing current authoring software. The paper documents a series of projects which began with the Windows help compiler before upgrading to Microsoft's multimedia viewer publishing toolkit. The latter has powerful yet easy to use text indexing and retrieval facilities The paper concludes by arguing that modern CD-ROMs provide fast and efficient access to large volumes of textual material without imposing information overload on their users.