Investigated the relative merits of searching on titles, subject headings, abstracts, free-language terms, and combinations of these elements. The combination of titles and abstracts came the closest to 100 percent retrieval. (Author/PF)

Provides a brief background of the Biological Abstracts' title index, "Biological Abstracts' Subject in Context" (BASIC) "Stop List," or compilation of nonsignificant words that were going to be automatically stopped from printing. Notes that the Stop List provided an improvement over the raw computer output of titles while…

This study surveyed abstracting policies and guidelines used by producers of bibliographic databases that aim to enhance free-text retrieval. Results indicate editors consider content of abstracts and their language as primary factors in retrieval enhancement. Most recommend that concepts and form be coordinated with controlled vocabulary…

To assess value of abstracts in online information retrieval, this study attempts to match free-text search phrases to index terms and provides classification of documents indicating form of retrieval to be expected by searching three databases--Energyline; Management Contents; and America, History and Life. Results of a sample search are…

Analyzes associations among different role operators quantitatively by taking input strings from 200 abstracts, each related to subject fields of taxation, genetic psychology, and Shakespearean drama, and subjecting them to the Chi-square test. Significant associations by other differencing operators and connectives are discussed. A schema of role…

Work has been performed on a fully automated approach for the general categorization of documents based on a training set of document titles and abstracts and journal-level indexing of the journals in which the documents are published. The goal of this research is to automatically index documents using a consistent, timely set of controlled…

Discussion of indexing consistency focuses on a study that examined duplicate records in "Information Science Abstracts" to determine how consistent the indexing was. Literature on indexing consistency is reviewed; index terms are discussed, including descriptors and identifiers; and the relationship between indexing depth and…

Discussion of subject access points in databases concentrates on the broader theoretical perspective. Topics include technology-driven stages in the development of subject access points; a taxonomy of subject access points; document titles; abstracts; references and citations; full text; and descriptors, identifiers, classification codes, and…

Presents an evaluative analysis of five indexing/abstracting services covering sports and physical education. Data on the scope, arrangement, indexing language, journal coverage, subject access, special features, and use aids in each of the services are presented in four tables. (JL)

This paper argues that as the number of concordance lines presented to researchers increases in line with ever-growing corpus size, the automatic selection of the most central lines will become more important. A method will be presented for selecting the most representative members from a set of concordance lines on the basis of repeated lexical…

The development of a large scale selective dissemination of information program, its experimental operation, and program evaluation is reported. An IBM 7090/94 computer program compared user interest profiles with the subject indexes of reports announced in "Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports." Users were provided with selected…

The Simple Index Method overcomes the difficulties in building a core list for serials in interdisciplinary fields by using multiple indexes which cover various aspects of the subject. Collection-development librarians can develop a core list when standard bibliographies or specific indexing and abstracting tools are lacking and can tailor that…

This study of the need for and feasibility of creating an Australian newspaper index comprises a brief historical background; an outline of the current position regarding access to newspapers, including the international scene; an assessment of the need for an Australian newspaper index; recommendations on the breadth and depth of subject coverage…

Describes a task-oriented assessment of two MEDLINE searching systems by medical students, one using Boolean searching on human-indexed thesaurus terms and one using natural language searching on words in the title, abstract, and indexing terms. Highlights include user certainty in answering questions, time needed, and user satisfaction.…