Citation indices providing information on backward citation (BWC) and forward citation (FWC) links are essential for literature discovery, bibliographic analysis, and knowledge synthesis, especially when language barriers impede document identification. However, the suitability of citation indices varies. While some have been analyzed, the…

Discovery layers provide a simplified interface for searching library resources. Libraries with limited finances make decisions about retaining indexing and abstracting databases when similar information is available in discovery layers. These decisions should be informed by student success at finding quality information as well as satisfaction…

Many published studies examine the effectiveness of Google Scholar (Scholar) as an index for scholarly articles. This paper analyzes the value of Scholar in finding and labeling online full text of articles using titles from the citations of engineering faculty publications. For the fields of engineering and the engineering colleges in the study,…

Argues that online indexing has great potential as a tool for information retrieval, and can be most effective when approached as a combination of traditional indexing and computer search capabilities. Argues that a good online index is specifically designed to be searched. Offers an overview of how to design such an online index. (SR)

Compares/contrasts InfoTrac and ProQuest primarily as full-text resources to supplement retrieval of references contained in the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) database. These databases are analyzed by examining their scope in terms of the number and types of serials covered within specific areas using…

Reports on a study designed to ascertain the occurrence of 10 terms from the field of urban planning in 55 databases available on the DIALOG system by searching the terms in the Dialindex file. Total postings and postings in 10 top ranking databases for each term are shown. (eight references) (MES)

Reports the results of a qualitative analysis of cocited author retrieval performance. The discussion covers the effects on recall of first author only access and the ability of cocited author search techniques to enhance retrieval performance. Multiple author frequency data is also presented. (14 references) (CLB)

Investigates information retrieval from hypertext on the World Wide Web. Significant main and interaction effects were found for both link density (number of links per display) and display format (paragraphs or lists) on search performance. Low link densities displayed in list format produced the best overall results. Expert browsers performed…

Content-based image retrieval is based on the idea of extracting visual features from images and using them to index images in a database. Proposes similarity measures and an indexing algorithm based on information theory that permits an image to be represented as a single number. When used in conjunction with vectors, this method displays…

Examines the potential of the "Australian Education Index" (AEI) as a tool to map and monitor educational research. Presents analyses that identify the thrust of research publications in Australia between 1984 and 1997. Key findings pertain to differences in the thrust of theses compared to other publications and to overall stability in…

Investigates how to improve the performance of an Arabic Information Retrieval System (Arabic-IRS) by imposing the retrieval method, Mixed Stemming, over individual words of a query depending on the importance of the word, the stem or the root of the query terms in the database. This method computes term importance using a Term Frequency and…

Focuses on the retrieval of numeric data from information sources that present special challenges. Describes a new method to deal with the challenge of accessing this special type of data indexed by unfamiliar metadata vocabularies. Extends the entry vocabulary module (EVM) approach to deal with numeric database searching. (AEF)

Proposes methods to utilize image primitives to support term assignment for image classification. Proposes to release code for image analysis in a common tool set for other researchers to use. Of particular focus is the expansion of work by researchers in image indexing to include image content-based feature extraction capabilities in their work.…

Describes the use of the "Science Citation Index" in deciding whether to keep older basic science books that have failed to meet other criteria for collection retention. It is concluded that manual searching of the indexes proved feasible and reliable, while the lack of book titles on the online version reduced reliability of weeding…

Reports on work at the University of California, Berkeley, on the design and development of English-language indices to metadata vocabularies. Discusses the significance of unfamiliar metadata and describes the Entry Vocabulary Module which helps searchers to be more effective and increases the return on the original investment in generating…