Describes the development of computer-based searching methods to support literature-based discoveries in medical literature through a replication of the discovery of a connection between Raynaud's disease and dietary fish oil. Topics include the logic of literature-based discovery, information retrieval methods for text analysis, and statistics…

Describes a study that analyzed transaction logs of users of Excite, an Internet search service. Highlights include data on sessions (changes in queries, number of pages viewed, and relevance feedback), queries (number of search terms and the use of logic and modifiers), and terms (rank/frequency distribution); user characteristics; and failure…

Summarizes the findings of a recent study on the indexing practices used in the Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) database. Descriptors, or indexing terms, from the thesaurus are analyzed; searching implications are discussed; and the relationship between the classification code and the descriptors is examined. (Contains 21…

Zipfian laws for frequency distributions of word pairs and longer phrases are derived from text sample analysis. From crossing of Zipfian curves, it is deduced that number of multi-word phrases that occur frequently in text is surprisingly small, of same order of magnitude as number of individual word-types. (8 references) (EJS)

Describes results of a survey conducted at Indiana State University libraries that studied patron perceptions and demographics related to keyword searching on LUIS, the online public access catalog (OPAC) available through NOTIS (Northwestern Online Total Integrated System.) Demographics studied include age, status, frequency of LUIS use, and…