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Unit 9: Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) Services

Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) was a concept first described by Hans Peter Luhn of Notes
IBM in the 1950’s. Software was developed in many companies and in government to provide this
service in the 50’s and 60’s, which allowed distribution of items recently published in abstract journals
to be routed to individuals who are likely to be interested in the contents. For example, the system
at Ft. Monmouth automatically sent out (by mail) a different set of abstracts to each of about 1,000
scientists/engineers in the Army depending on what they were working on. The selection was
based on an “interest profile,” a list of keywords that described their interests. In some organizations,
the ‘interest profile’ was much more than a simple list of keywords. Librarians or information
professionals conducted extensive interviews with their clients to establish a fairly complex profile
for each individual. Based on these profiles, the information professionals would then distribute
selectively appropriate information to their clients. This labour-intensive operation was costly, which
over time was diminished.

9.1 Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) Services

SDI is a special type of current awareness service. It supplies each user with the references of docu-
ments to their predefined areas of interest, selected from document published recently or received
during a particular span of time.

Luhn first coined the concept of SDI as a computer mediated information services.
The workflow of SDI service is based on the following steps:
• Step I-Users’ profile: In the first step needs and interests of each user or a group of users
having similar requirements are ascertained and carefully analyzed. These are then expressed
in terms of some keywords, collected from an accepted thesaurus. User profile may be stored
as a database file in case of computerised SDI.
• Step II-Document profile: In this step contents of selected documents are analyzed and
expressed in terms of keywords selected from the same accepted thesaurus. It is necessary for
precise matching. This may also be stored as a database file.
• Step III-Matching: The first two steps are the work of library professionals. This step i.e.,
matching of two profiles is conducted by computer at regular intervals. The result of match-
ing is then saved as a file in the required format such as text, html etc.
• Step IV-Notification: This step involves communication of result to the users. Notification
may be sent to users through e-mail by attaching the result file or as a hard copy by obtaining
printout of the result file (s).

Step V-Feedback: SDI includes a mechanism of feedback from the side of users.
Generally, a feedback form is sent to each user along with the notification in which he/she has to
indicate whether the document really interests him/her, whether he/she needs a copy or why it
is of no interest to him/her. On the basis of feedback user’s profile is updated regularly.

Discuss various steps involved in SDI.

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