Describes search tactics useful for online searching and how to use them, and identifies the points in a search at which they are most useful. An extended example shows how all the tactics may be used in an online search. (EM)

Describes strategies that can be used to search the DIALOG database by date to add precision to searching. The "Current" command is explained, as well as other commands; ways to search a specific year are described; and DIALOG files that are already restricted by date are discussed. (LRW)

Explains five causes of false drops in online searching: reverse concepts, homographs, truncation, acronyms, and negatives. Examples from a variety of databases are provided. (EM)

Examines three familiar humanities databases that do not have named person indexes and identifies strategies to facilitate both quick, precise searching and high recall for searches where the subject is a personal name. Descriptions of the databases, suggested search strategies, and sample searches are provided. (CDD)

After reviewing the literature on automatic indexing research an experiment is described which examined term distribution and the effectiveness of the Two Poisson and Three Poisson Models in identifying good index terms. The conclusion reached is that these models should be applied with caution in document retrieval. (25 references) (EAM)

Presents a model of information retrieval based on plausible inference which suggests that techniques should be found for combining multiple search strategies into an overall assessment of a document's relevance. The results of experiments designed to test this approach using a simple spreading activation search are discussed. (21 references) (CLB)

The issue of free-text versus controlled vocabulary is examined. The history of the issue, which is seen as beginning with the debate over title term indexing in the nineteenth century, is reviewed and questions not satisfactorily addressed by previous research are raised. (Author/EM)

Provides excerpts from interviews with expert online searchers to be published in a book entitled "Secrets of the Super Searchers" in the fall of 1993. Planning search strategies is the focus; and topics addressed include methods of planning searches, broad versus narrow searches, and building with component parts. (EAM)

Demonstrates how recall and precision can be expressed using a topological approach to retrieval introduced by S.C. Cater (1986); investigates threshold and close match retrieval systems and optimal and non-optimal searching; and highlights relations with hypergeometric and non-standard distributions. Includes seven appendices of mathematical…

This examination of online subject searching of personal names in four databases--PAIS, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts, and Social SciSearch--covers documentation and searching for personal names as descriptors, free-text and controlled vocabulary searching, recall and precision, identifier field, and online versus manual retrieval. Search…

Discusses software design issues for Okapi, an information retrieval system that incorporates both search engine and user interface and supports weighted searching, relevance feedback, and query expansion. The basic search system, adjacency searching, and moving toward a distributed system are discussed. (Author/LRW)

Describes a simple six-step searching model designed to deliver good results without introducing complexities likely to confuse the naive user. The findings of tests that compared the results of the easy search model with expert searches are presented, and conclusions about end user training are discussed. (nine references) (CLB)

Investigates performance of online searchers using a prototype expert system that automatically reformulates queries to improve results and ranks retrieved passages to speed identification of relevant information. Results indicated that the system significantly reduced the number of queries needed, produced marginally significant improvements in…

Designed to measure end-users' efficacy in online searching based on their presearch experience with printed literature retrieval systems for the search topic, this experiment examined differences between manual searches preceding electronic searches and vice versa. The results were not statistically significant due to the small sample size.…

Reviews three database systems available for searching generic chemical structure representations: (1) Derwent's Chemical Code System; (2) IDC's Gremas System; and (3) Derwent's Markush DARC System. Various types of searches are described, features desirable to users are discussed, and comparison searches are described that measured recall and…