The third in a series of five articles illustrates the need for a better understanding of the indexing function. (AB)

Outlines the processes involved in improving the subject catalog at a medical library. Policy decisions concerning heading sources and revision methodology and plans for analyzing, weeding, and increasing the relevance of subject terms is discussed. The making of catalog changes and the results of catalog revision are also described. (JL)

Discusses the effectiveness of using author-supplied indexing to increase subject control in information retrieval, and describes a study which compared author indexing for articles published in "American Mathematical Society" journals to indexing of the same articles by an editor of "Mathematical Reviews." Nine references are…

The preparation of the subject index for a scientific bibliography is described in detail. (Author)

Discusses the quality of information retrieval using "free text" searching in full-text databases and presents a critical perspective on the importance of augmenting access to full-text databases through some form of text enhancement, such as the use of a limited controlled vocabulary for indexing general concepts. (Author/JL)

Discusses access to editorial cartoons, including the importance and worth of editorial cartoons; sources, including newspapers, museums, and special cartoon collections; indexing and classification; subject access; indexing by illustrator and subject; technology and access, including digital data; access to special collections; and access to…

Describes the development of an in-house bibliographic database by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory on arctic wetlands research. Topics discussed include planning; identifying relevant search terms and commercial online databases; downloading citations; criteria for software selection; management…

Describes a study of professional searchers that investigated their decisions about using search terms. The use of descriptors from a controlled vocabulary versus the use of textwords for free-text searching is examined, searching styles and differences in subject areas are discussed, and the quality of thesauri and indexing is considered. (six…

A survey of five major bank libraries revealed three distinct levels of subject access to serial publications: manually based systems with no formal subject access; computer-aided systems in which the sorting capabilities of computerized serials management are utilized to generate printed lists arranged by subject; and online catalogs with subject…