June 1997 • Volume 24 • Number 3

Searching for Information

By Michael Trick

INFORMS Online (IOL), found at http://www.informs.org, is the electronic information service of INFORMS. One of the strongest capabilities of INFORMS Online is our search ability. To search our various databases, we use a commercial WAIS (Wide Area Information Server) package. This system allows for fast, flexible searching for information. Here are a few examples:

The membership directory (http://www.informs.org/Dir/Dir2.html). INFORMS has published a membership directory for many, many years. At one level, the online version is nothing more than the printed version. At another level, however, we can greatly expand the usefulness of the membership directory by having it online.

The online version is much more robust allowing searching on name, geography (including U.S. zip codes), employer, subdivision membership or any combination of the entries. For instance, to find all members who live in Pennsylvania and are members of the Logistics Section, you need only fill out the form to have "PA" in the State, set the "Sections, Societies and Fora" to "Logistics," and ask for IOL to "Find Members" (there are 28 of them). This search capability is much more powerful than that available in any printed document. Furthermore, the online membership directory can be made much more current than the printed version, with updates every month or two. Approximately 25 people access the membership directory every day, generating an average of six lookups each.
The National Conference Bulletin (currently http://www.informs.org/Conf/SD97/). Every national meeting has its bulletin placed online. Of course, much of the information online is also available through the printed bulletins (either the short version included with OR/MS Today or the full version with abstracts available at the meeting). However, the search capability of the WAIS system makes the online version much easier to find presentations of interest and to map out a "conference strategy." In this case, searching is done through the entire text of the presentations. To find all presentations of someone from Carnegie Mellon University, I searched on "Carnegie Mellon" and found 23 such sessions (of course, I would also pull out sessions with, say, a title of "Optimizing Carnegie Mellon's Layout" or other use of the name).
The Annual Comprehensive Index and Meetings Database (http://www.informs.org/Biblio/ACI.html and http://www.informs.org/Biblio/Meetings.html). The Annual Comprehensive Index is a database of all papers included in the journal, International Abstracts in OR. It currently contains 20,250 citations, each with author, title, journal, year, pages, IAOR classification and keywords. Citations are searchable by words in title, author, journal, IAOR classification or key word. The Meetings Presentation Database is similar, and contains citations to 20,593 presentations at INFORMS (and ORSA/TIMS) National Meetings dating back to 1990. This database includes the abstract for each presentation.

Spotlight on Subdivisions
One area of INFORMS that is very active on the world wide web is its subdivisions. Almost all of the sections of INFORMS now have their own web page. The INFORMS Online Subdivision Page (http://www.informs.org/subdiv/subdiv.html) tries to keep track of subdivision activities and aid subdivisions in creating and managing their web presence.

Some of the more extensive pages include that of the Decision Analysis Society (http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/faculty/daweb/), the Computer Science Technical Section (http://www.math.clemson.edu/INFORMS/CSTS/), and the section on Manufacturing and Service Operations (http://www.sie.arizona.edu/MSOM/msom.html). Fewer chapters (representing geographic areas) currently have pages: the Cincinnati/Dayton Chapter (http://www.econqa.cba.uc.edu/~informs.cinday/) shows how useful a chapter page can be. Only a handful of student chapters have pages, with the page of the University of Texas at Austin (http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~informs) being particularly thorough.

A common complaint of subdivision officers is the difficulty in getting people to work for the subdivision, including creating and maintaining web pages. Understanding and creating web pages is a useful skill to have, and INFORMS subdivisions are begging for volunteers.

New Items at IOL
As always, there are a large number of new items at IOL:

IOL has a Guide for Professionals (http://www.informs.org/Conf/SD97/Prof/), a listing of the highlights of the meeting for those who apply OR/MS methods on a full-time basis. Similar pages will be a standard part of IOL's conference offerings.
A Volunteer Page has been started to make it easier for members to volunteer to participate in INFORMS activities (http://www.informs.org/VOLUNTEER/).
A Research Funding Page lists opportunities for funded research in OR/MS, along with pointers to federal and other agencies which maintain web pages or electronic databases for such information (http://www.informs.org/Funds/funding.html).
There is a tremendous amount of material done by other groups at INFORMS. A small sample of this includes the online version of OR/MS Today (http://207.69.204.147/ORMS.shtml - which now has a very nice search mechanism), the Forum on Education Page (http://www.ualberta.ca/~informed/) and the Academic/Practitioner Interface Committee Page (http://www.informs.org/APIC).

Announcements of new pages and new activities are made regularly at IOL.

Contact
You can reach me by e-mail at iol_editor@mail.informs.org. Volunteers are still needed to help INFORMS Online expand its services.

E-mail to the Editorial Department of OR/MS Today: orms@lionhrtpub.com

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