Sixty-one students provided the Library of Congress (LC) subject terms they would use to search an academic library catalog in 30 hypothetical searches. Students had difficulty developing strategies. The study concluded that LC subject cataloging needs rationalization. (KP)

Demonstrates the property of inclusiveness of document retrieval systems where documents are indexed by unweighted terms and in which query search patterns are Boolean functions of descriptors and presents three methods for determining a partial ordering on a set of system responses to these queries. Eleven sources are listed. (FM)

Estimates of frequency of spelling errors are made based on a sample of 3,600 index terms drawn from 11 bibliographic data bases. The impact of these errors is discussed by tape supplier, tape user, and end user; with some suggestions for search strategies.

Proposes an information retrieval model in which documents are characterized by a simple probability measure on the set of index terms, and describes two retrieval strategies, one based on utility theory and the other on information theory. The discussion covers experimental findings of retrieval effectiveness and insights into fundamental…

Describes a study that collected statistics on the occurrence of terms used in searching an online catalog and investigated the correlation of the selection of terms with their occurrence in indexing. The discussion of the results includes implications for indexing theories. (19 references) (CLB)

Describes a method for enhancing the subject index terms of a document with title terms from cited, citing, and cocited documents. Experimental results of this methodology are presented, and responses to criticisms of this strategy are made. (40 references) (CLB)

Presents uniform and efficient approach for processing all truncated query terms in information retrieval which requires one disk access to obtain from the permuted dictionary all strings represented by truncated term. The problem of the overhead storage required to implement the permuted dictionary is discussed. Fifteen references are provided.…

Describes an expert system which provides users who have information needs with terms to express search queries; introduces principles on which the system's behavior is based; describes the system's main procedures and decision rules; presents an example of system use; and outlines possible improvements in system search and evaluation procedures.…

Describes the use of relevance feedback to select additional search terms and discusses the extraction of these terms from a maximum spanning tree connecting all terms in the index term vocabulary; retrieval effectiveness for different spanning trees is shown to be similar. Eight references are included. (Author/BK)

Describes large scale experiments to test the value of index term weighting based on relevance information, and presents results showing that weighting leads to remarkable improvements in retrieval performance. (Author/CWM)

Describes a model of an information retrieval system based on a thesaurus with weights. Appropriate terms are defined, and inclusiveness and two other fundamental properties of the system are presented. (CWM)

Describes a method based on Bayesian networks for searching hypertext systems. Discussion covers the use of Bayesian networks for structuring index terms and representing user information needs; use of link semantics based on constrained spreading activation to find starting points for browsing; and evaluation of a prototype system. (64…

Describes a study that tested the effectiveness of a thesaurus as a search-aid in free text searching of a Finnish full text database. Linguistic and conceptual approaches are discussed; five search modes are explained; recall and precision are examined; and the use of proximity operators is discussed. (Contains 29 references.) (LRW)

Reviews methods to improve online catalogs for subject searching and describes the design of an expert system front-end to improve subject access in online public access catalogs that focuses on search strategies. Implementation of a prototype system at the National University of Singapore is described, and reformulation strategies are discussed.…

This discussion of the structure of online databases and the structure of related subject disciplines focuses on terms used in a book about tropical diseases and terms used in the MEDLINE database for articles on these diseases. Matrices used are explained and Medical Subject Heading (MeSh) terms are examined. (16 references) (LRW)