Bradford (computer program)

Bradford was a computer program, primarily functioning as an information retrieval system, designed to assist researchers in locating relevant documents within large databases. Its operation revolved around Bradford's Law of Scattering, an observation regarding the distribution of publications relevant to a specific subject across different journals.

The core concept behind Bradford's design was to optimize the search process by prioritizing journals and other sources deemed most likely to contain relevant information, based on the principles outlined in Bradford's Law. The system aimed to reduce the time and effort required for researchers to sift through vast amounts of irrelevant material. While specifics of its implementation varied, the general approach involved ranking sources according to their predicted yield of relevant documents, allowing users to focus their search on the most promising avenues.

Bradford-type systems were particularly useful in fields with a wide dispersal of publications across numerous sources, allowing researchers to quickly identify core journals and related publications relevant to their research topic. The program's effectiveness was heavily dependent on the accuracy and completeness of the underlying database and the validity of the applied Bradford distribution.