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Our ISSMFE representatives to SRG are encouraged that there will be good cooperation and agreement among all three groups.

GEOTECHNICAL ABS7RACTS/GE0DEX RETRIEYAL SYSTEM (ga/gRS)

GA/GRS was adopted by ISSMFE at the 1969 Mexico Conference as its official information system and sińce January 1970 has been issuing 1*44 abstracts monthly, in conjunction with retrieval cards, covering about 500 sources of worldwide publications.    The development of GA by the German Society is summarized by Kuhn (3).

Geodex International, Inc. of California had an established International geotechnical abstracting and retrieval service utilizing a series of punched key-word cards for retrieval of the abstracts (GRS).

In the late 1960*s the Geotechnical Engineering Division (then called the Soil Mechanics and Foundations Division) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) prepared and published a 1500 word Thesaurus of key words for indexing and retrieval of abstracts. It also, for a period of about two years, published in its Journal abstracts of worldwide publications provided by ISSMFE members, many of whom are presently on the IAC. The ASCE voluntarily relinquished its role of publishing abstracts in view of the intentions of ISSMFE to publish GA, which would serve the members better.    In so doing, however, ASCE urged

the merger of GA and GRS as complementary services because of the need to provide a method to conveniently retrieve the abstracts.

GA/GRS have been linked as the official abstract/retrieval system of ISSMFE sińce the first issue of GA in January 1970.    The abstract cards contain both the IGC system and a set of descriptors taken from a

list of 347 Geodex key words. The user may file and retrieve abstracts by either the GRS punched cards or the IGS system.

GA/GRS operates independently on a self supporting basis under the management of the German Society and Geodex International, Inc., respectively, but with the fuli endorsement and support of ISSMFE. Almost 1000 subscribers in some 65 countries use GA/GRS. The data of the morę than 10,000 published abstracts of GA, and the Geodex descriptors, are being stored in a Computer so as to offer other services to the members.

During the past 7 years, the lists of descriptors and sources of articles have been revised to keep pace with the needs of the profession. Thus, GA/GRS is the best information service available to the Geotechnical Engineering profession in the world, and is constantly being monitored and updated to take advantage of new techniąues and changing needs so as to serve the members better.

LIAIS0N WITH AGE

On April 5-9, 1976, the Asian Information Center for Geotechnical Engineering (AGE) of the Asian Institute of Technology conducted a Workshop on Geotechnical Information Systems in Bangkok. The objectives and recommendations Corning from that meeting are presented in the Proceedings (1). IAC was invited to represen^-ISSMFE at the Workshop; at the reąuest of this reporter, Flodin, Jdrstad, Kuhn and Norup attended on behalf of ISSMFE. Their report (also supported by Mr. Floss) is appended.

Several discussions and conclusions coming from the Workshop give cause for concern for the ISSMFE representatives of the Workshop and the IAC chairman. In order to explain the concerns, a brief review is reąuired.

In Moscow in 1973, AGE discussed its plans for publications and services. In relation to interaction with GA/GRS, it was noted that

1.    AGE is restricted to Asia

2.    AGE will publicize GA/GRS

3.    AGE will abstract only papers published in Asia and unpublished reports relevant to Asia.

ISSMFE President Peck suggested that "peculiar to Asia" be used instead of "relevant to Asia"

4.    There will be only a 5% overlap in AGE abstracts and GA/GRS abstracts

5.    ISSMFE gave AGE its blessing on the understanding that the two services would be mutually exclusive, and that AGE would not compete with GA/GRS.

Referring to the Workshop report by ISSMFE attendees, item (b), 50% of AGE abstracts duplicate GA abstracts. This is far above the 5% overlap agreed to. Item (d), referring to the Current Awareness Services, indicates direct competition with GA, and increased competition via AGE's plans to expand its service to a monthly publication and to sell it not only in Asia but also internationally. Item (f) of the report is also disturbing; a worldwide newsletter is a violation of the Moscow agreement, sińce its effect is likely to be to solicit subscriptions outside Asia.

Referring to Conclusions and Recommendations, p.17 of Workshop Proceedings (1), item 3 reads as

follows:    "AGE should continue to function ____ by collecting (a) published geotechnical literaturę of relevance

to Asia, and (b) unpublished documents which originate in Asia, ...." This is in direct opposition with the Moscow agreement wherein AGE will publish only papers published in Asia and unpublished reports peculiar to Asia. The concerns of the ISSMFE representatives of the Workshop and the IAC chairman have been impressed on the Secretary General, who expressed them in this letter to Professor Brand (AGE) dated lOth November 1976. A copy is attached.

It is this reporter's opinion that the efforts of AGE, if allowed to go unehecked, will result in the undermining of ISSMFE's international stature and authority to the detriment of all the world's members.

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