A comparative evaluation of results in terms of recall and precision from queries submitted to systems with automatic and manual subject indexing. Differences were attributed to query formulation. The effectiveness of automatic indexing was found equivalent to manual indexing. (Author/KP)

Presents criteria for an effective syntagmatic relator system and describes how conceptual syntagmatic relationships are expressed in natural language, commenting on the adequacy of such expressions for document retrieval systems. Only one type of expression, a gestalt structure, represented as a frame, conforms to the criteria. (Author/JKP)

Describes an experiment comparing the performance of an automatic full-text indexing software for personal computers (i.e., the Quick-Finder facility in WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows) with the human intellectual assignment of indexing terms to each document in a collection. Results are discussed in terms of ease of use, the time factor, and recall…

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)

In order to compare effects of input processing on information retrieval in three databases, 25 articles from a specific journal were examined. Tables and Venn diagrams show retrieval results from different manual and computer searches. The relation between document surrogates and subject matter of the documents is discussed. (SW)

Presents the advantages and disadvantages of free text and controlled vocabulary retrieval techniques and a methodology to assist in deciding on the optimal technique for a particular purpose. The relevance of the techniques for expert systems and full text contexts is also discussed and recommendations for further research are made. (Author/EM)

Describes an investigation of the use of document components, such as terms, sentences, and whole documents, for indexing and retrieval. A number of probabilistic similarity measures based on document components are studied, as well as a new method of handling probability estimations involving small sample sizes. (24 references) (Author/CLB)

Reports on a comparative study of the postcoordinate retrieval effectiveness of Library of Congress Subject Headings and the Preserved Context Indexing System (PRECIS). Data are presented in six tables and one figure, and a reference list is included. (Author/JL)

Intended to provide the nursing community with a comparative analysis of four major computerized document retrieval systems and one manual system providing coverage of the nursing literature, this study compares the indexing vocabulary, database coverage, and retrieval performance of the Educational Resource Information Center (ERIC),…

Describes and discusses the findings of an experiment that tested the precision of full-text retrieval enhanced by 29 document term weighting algorithms at the lowest, middle, and highest levels of recall, and compared with the precision of full-text retrieval without algorithms and with paragraph retrieval. (29 references) (Author/CLB)

Describes research which measured the efficiency of role operators through frequency of appearances in PRECIS input strings for 200 abstracts related to taxation, genetic psychology, and Shakespearian drama. Frequencies of appearance of major categories of role operators, role operators in different subjects, individual main line operators, and…

Describes three models for probabilistic indexing, all based on the Darmstadt automatic indexing approach, and presents experimental evaluation results for each. The discussion covers the improved retrieval effectiveness of probabilistic indexing over binary indexing, and suggestions for using this automatic indexing method with free text terms.…

Traditional library skills have been augmented since the introduction of online computerized database services. Because of the complexity of the field, forensic psychology can benefit enormously from the application of comprehensive bibliographic search strategies. The study reported here demonstrated the bibliographic results obtained when a…

Presents findings of project aimed at improving subject access in online library catalogs by generating records with augmented subject descriptions, termed BOOKS records, and comparing them with MARC records. Procedures involved in the selection of subject descriptions to generate a BOOKS record are described and illustrated. Six references cited.…

Examines the history, structure, and search capabilities of Internet search tools AltaVista and Yahoo. AltaVista provides relevance-ranked feedback on full-text searches. Yahoo indexes Web "citations" only but does organize information hierarchically into predefined categories. Yahoo has recently become a publicly held company and…