A study to determine the value to humanists of a thesaurus integrating free-text terms from the humanities and social sciences found a high degree of overlap, suggesting that such a thesaurus would be useful to scholars in both disciplines. Results also demonstrated that combining controlled vocabulary and free-text term searching yielded more…

This article describes a research and development project the objective of which was to develop a means to produce standardized statewide usage data made available from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Using a range of data collection and evaluation methods, the project staff determined that there were significant problems in…

The objective relevance of a document to a request is crucial to the design and testing of bibliographic retrieval systems, while subjective relevance is paramount in the use of such systems. The distinction provides a rationale for a trial-and-error mode of interaction with information systems. (Author/EM)

Discussion of the information-seeking behavior of humanists focuses on a study that investigated the efficacy of following bibliographic references from documents already known. Topics include the nature of humanities research; vocabulary control and indexing; subject-based literature searches; seed documents; relevance; retrieval based on…

Reports a study that analyzed natural language search statements constructed by 22 Getty Visiting Scholars as they researched humanities topics on DIALOG. Results show a greater use of names, geographical areas, chronological periods, and discipline terms than scientists use, with implications for the design of humanities online systems and…

This article reports the results of a quantitative and thematic content analysis of the organization of information literature in the "Library Quarterly" ("LQ") between its inception in 1931 and 2004. The majority of articles in this category were published in the first half of "LQ's" run. Prominent themes have included cataloging codes and the…