A method of computer implemented sorting of a plurality of documents relevant to one or more of a plurality of specialties, said method being employed to construct or maintain a computer accessible database to be accessed by a plurality of readers or groups of readers, said method comprising the steps of
- developing a list of said plurality of specialties in a field of interest to said plurality of readers or groups of readers,
- identifying documents relevant to respective ones of said one or more specialties, wherein said step of identifying is carried out by at least one expert in said one or more specialties, said expert being a person,
- selecting a limited number of documents for inclusion in said plurality of documents, wherein said step of selecting is carried out by at least one expert in said one or more specialties, said expert being a person,
- developing a hierarchical master index of subject matter referred to in said plurality of documents, each entry in said hierarchical master index having at least one of an index term and an associated code, wherein said step of developing a hierarchical master index is carried out by at least one expert in said one or more specialties, said expert being a person,
- assigning a limited number of index terms and associated codes of said hierarchical master index to each document of said plurality of documents, wherein said step of assigning a limited number of index terms and associated codes is carried out by at least one expert in said one or more specialties, said expert being a person, and wherein said step of assigning a limited number of index terms or codes is based on primary relevance of material described as determined by said expert,
- assigning at least one of said one or more specialties of said list of specialties developed in said developing step to each document of said plurality of documents, wherein said step of assigning at least one of said one or more specialties is carried out separately from said step of assigning a limited number of index terms by at least one expert in said one or more specialties, said expert being a person,
- assembling, using a computer, a plurality of hierarchical specialty indices of subject matter for respective ones of said plurality of specialties from index terms and associated codes assigned to respective documents in each of said ones of said plurality of specialties, wherein results of said step of assigning a limited number of index terms and results of said step of assigning at least one of said plurality of specialties as applied to respective ones of said documents identified in said step of identifying documents relevant to respective ones of said one or more specialities are merged by said computer, and
- sorting, using said computer, respective documents of said plurality of documents in accordance with a respective one of said plurality of hierarchical speciality indices for a respective one or more specialties, wherein said method results in construction or maintenance of a database from which documents, limited in number in accordance with said selecting step and relevant to each respective speciality, are retrieved with improved accuracy and reduction of false positives, and wherein the creation of empty folders in said hierarchical speciality indices is prevented.