Brief instructions were mounted above the modified keyboard showing how to send a message to the mainframe, how to attach keywords to it to make it searchable and how to search those keywords to find messages from others. To use a Community Memory terminal, the user would type the command ADD, followed by the text of the item, and then by any keywords under which he/she desired the item to be indexed.
Instructions were given above the modified keyboard, detailing how to send messages to the mainframe, attach keywords for searchability, and search those keywords to find other users' messages. To use a Community Memory terminal, users would input "ADD" followed by the item text and any relevant keywords for indexing.