Current methodologies for designing search strategies rely heavily on the knowledge and expertise of information specialists. Yet, the volume and complexity of scientific literature is overwhelming for even the most experienced information specialists, making it difficult to produce robust search strategies for complex systematic reviews. In this…

Introduction: Registration and publication of trial protocols has become increasingly important and a requirement in some sources of funding and publication. Increased access to protocols yields many potential benefits, but there are issues regarding identification of published protocols. The aim of this investigation is to compare methods of…

Background: The rising prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) increases the need for evidence-based behavioral treatments to lessen the impact of symptoms on children's functioning. At present, there are no curative or psychopharmacological therapies to effectively treat all symptoms of the disorder. Early intensive behavioral intervention…

Reports the results of a study that examined four databases, AGRICOLA, BIOSIS, CAB, and SCISEARCH, to determine their overlap with regard to agricultural and forestry literature. Relative strengths and weaknesses were assessed concerning subject coverage, timeliness, and searching capabilities. (Author)

Demonstrates efficiency of preparation of query description using semantic analyser method based on analysis of semantic structure of documents in field of automatic indexing. Results obtained are compared with automatic indexing results performed by traditional methods and results of indexing done by human indexers. Sample terms and codes are…

Presents analysis of online search patterns within user searching sessions of National Library of Medicine ELHILL system and examines user search patterns on the CATLINE database. Data previously analyzed on MEDLINE database for same period is used to compare the performance parameters of different databases within the same information system.…

This study compares results of searching full text of journal articles available on standard inverted file systems with searching of various parts of a document's surrogate. Relative recall and precision ratios for four search methods (full text, abstract, controlled vocabulary, bibliographic union) are reported. Search topics are appended. (14…

Evaluates overlapping coverage of 21 scientific databases used in 10 online pesticide searches in an attempt to identify minimum number of databases needed to generate 90 percent of unique, relevant citations for given search. Comparison of searches combined under given pesticide usage (herbicide, fungicide, insecticide) is discussed. Nine…

Explores similarities between research approaches characterizing different paradigms in information science and different information-processing styles of individual researchers. Proposes a model of the way in which new knowledge is generated, based on these similarities. The model focuses on "research pathologies," and ways in which the…

Retrievability of titles of 152 periodicals were compared in a fixed-length algorithmic search (Library Computer System) and a keyword search (Washington Library Network) to determine which type of search algorithm is more successful with titles of varying lengths. Three references and a list of English language stopwords are appended. (EJS)

An on-line bibliographic search on evaluating computerized bibliographic data bases and systems, which was performed in the ERIC data base, led the authors to recommend several aspects of online searching for more relevant search results in library and information science literature. (Author/JD)

Online seaches of sample topics in the area of forensic medicine were conducted in the following life science databases: Biosis Previews, Excerpta Medica, Medline, Scisearch, and Chemical Abstracts Search. Search outputs analyzed according to criteria of recall, uniqueness, overlap, and utility reveal the need for a cross-database approach to…

Two subject profiles (social welfare direct practice and management) were used to search 13 social science databases in order to examine extent of online coverage of social welfare literature. Journal coverage data for 20 titles were obtained and most recent citations were retrieved to compare currency of indexing (5 references). (EJS)

Considers classifications produced by application of single linkage, complete linkage, group average, and word clustering methods to Keen and Cranfield document test collections, and studies structure of hierarchies produced, extent to which methods distort input similarity matrices during classification generation, and retrieval effectiveness…

Describes design and development of a thesaurus based on lexical-semantic relations, and compares results of experiments with queries enhanced using thesauri based on several different groups of relations against performance with original queries run on IRS information retrieval system developed at Illinois Institute of Technology. Twenty-one…