Large libraries of mathematical software need rich and precise documentation and a very good and convenient information system. The paper presents the solution to this problem as applied at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). It is stated that the NBS collection of mathematical software consists of about 2,800 programs and subroutines from different sections of mathematics and over 10,000 items of documentation. The authors provide a user-oriented system of interlibrary reference: Guide to Available Mathematical Software (GAMS). GAMS contains a relative database organized under the RIM system, an interactive consulting system, and a printed catalogue. GAMS supports many libraries with different organization. The GAMS subject-oriented classification system allows the user to find necessary information, even if he or she does not have the proper mathematical background.

The GAMS classification system (displayed in Appendix A) is traditional. The authors admit that certain parts of GAMS presented in the paper have not been implemented yet.

The paper could be of some interest to people who maintain mathematical software libraries and to scientists who use this software. It seems to me that the paper is too detailed as an ACM publication and too general to be used as a GAMS user’s guide. Even though the paper is clear, it contains a lot of unnecessary detailed information and lacks some important data.