Epilepsy Abstracts Retrieval System (EARS): a new concept for medical literature storage and retrieval

Epilepsy Abstracts, a monthly publication of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, is used as the data base for an on-line full-text search and retrieval system. Every word in the abstract (except common words that possess no retrieval value) becomes a keyword, reducing the mismatch between the user's familiarity with word usage in the desired subject area and the word usage in the documents to be searched.