This introduction to the characteristics of software for CD-ROM describes programs used to format and create data stored on the disk, as well as retrieval programs. Criteria that need to be considered when evaluating CD-ROM software are discussed, including retrieval strategies (browsing vs. keyword searching), interfaces, index and file…

When the ISI(R) (Institute for Scientific Information (R)) decided to incorporate scholarly, research-oriented Web sites as an expansion of the "Current Contents Connect" (TM) database, the organization faces significant issues relating to establishment of evaluative criteria and the capture of appropriate metadata. This discussion…

Reviews the literature on the content aspects of database quality, specifically scope, composition, currency, accuracy, consistency, completeness, and source, journal, geographic, language, and time-period coverage. These criteria can be evaluated qualitatively and/or quantitatively to determine the profile of a database, and to ascertain search…

Examines the use of various statistical techniques for generating domain-oriented multiword vocabulary terms for natural language database systems. Conclusions show the vocabulary clustering effect should be considered when making significance calculations and that a simple ratio of subject matter relative frequency to total sample relative…

Currently available World Wide Web search engines determine a site's qualification as a response to a search request by matching keywords in the request to keywords representing the site. The returned sites are given a score and ranked according to the match on keywords. Many of these retrieved sites can be irrelevant to the user's true…