New Issue: Science’s Impossible Questions. Read Now

Computer Software for Information Management

Enormous volumes of stored data are of use only if information can be retrieved quickly in an understandable form. Software for the purpose must reflect the structure of the data base and of the storage medium

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

00

MICHAEL LESK is a chief research scientist at Bellcore in Morristown, N.J. He is best known for work in electronic libraries, including the CORE project for chemical information, and for writing some Unix system utilities, such as those for table printing (tbl) and intersystem mail (uucp). Lesk is a Fellow of the ACM and a visiting professor of computer science at University College London. During 1987 he was Senior Visiting Fellow of the British Library.

More by Michael Lesk
Scientific American Magazine Vol 251 Issue 3This article was published with the title “Computer Software for Information Management” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 251 No. 3 (), p. 162
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0984-162

Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism

Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.

When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.

Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber

Thank you,

Jeanna Bryner, Editor in Chief, Scientific American

Subscribe