Results of investigation of exploitation costs of INSPEC database in selective dissemination of information service are presented. Parameters which influence exploitation costs--time spent looking for information, information query length, number of answers, time spent modifying user's query, and amount of modification--are analyzed. Six…

Data on 2,380 searches of online information retrieval systems are analyzed using a mathematical model to determine the relationship between two measures of effectiveness--documents read and relevant references. The nature and relative merits of these two variables are discussed, as well as the findings, and seven references are listed. (RBF)

Presents preliminary findings of a project intended to develop a user-validated measurement instrument based on users' relevance criteria. Two validation tests revealed conceptual and methodological challenges involving the semantic ambiguity of terms and verified the importance of situational context to scale development and use. (Author/AEF)

Presents a stratified model of information retrieval interaction that views interaction as a dialog between participants (user and computer) through an interface. Discusses traditional and interaction models, and extension to relevance, user modeling, search term selection, and types of feedback in information retrieval. (AEF)

Introduces a personalization approach in a traditional information retrieval system. Describes extensions of integrating collaboration in personalization in the Web retrieval environment, based on differences in the nature of documents, users and search tasks between traditional and Web retrieval environments. Presents a user-oriented evaluation…

These two articles discuss clustering structure in the Cystic Fibrosis Document Collection, which is derived from the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE file. The exhaustivity of four subject representations and two citation representations is examined, and descriptor-weight thresholds and similarity thresholds are used to compute…

Describes SAPHIRE, an experimental information retrieval system featuring concept-based automated indexing, natural language input, and relevance-based retrieval; and compares its retrieval effectiveness with other indexing approaches in a Boolean-based searching environment. Indexing in MEDLINE is described, and a test collection of AIDS…

Study results indicate that it is feasible to develop automatic name recognition algorithms to distinguish character strings representing names from other character strings occurring in English language titles. This finding offers cautious promise for alleviating some of the labor intensive work of cataloging. (16 references) (Author/SD)

Discussion of the information-seeking behavior of humanists focuses on a study that investigated the efficacy of following bibliographic references from documents already known. Topics include the nature of humanities research; vocabulary control and indexing; subject-based literature searches; seed documents; relevance; retrieval based on…

Includes eight articles that discuss issues related to special corporate libraries in Australia. Highlights include change, competition, and marketing; customer service in a value-added information environment; the need for librarians to organize and locate relevant information; and health libraries. (LRW)

Describes a study of the retrieval results of World Wide Web search engines. Research quantified accurate matches versus matches of arguable quality for 200 subjects relevant to undergraduate curricula. Both "evaluative" engines (Magellan, Point Communications) and "nonevaluative" engines (Lycos, InfoSeek, AltaVista) were…

Investigates the regions across a distribution of users' relevance judgments. A multidimensional instrument was designed using four scales for collecting, measuring, and describing end-user relevance judgments, and was administered to 21 end-users who conducted searches on their own information problems and made relevance judgments on a total of…

Reports end-users' ratings of the relative importance of 40 relevance criteria as used in their own information-seeking situations, and examines relationships between criteria that they rated most important. A model of relevance with three constructs that contribute to the concept of relevance was proposed using 11 criteria that survey respondents…

Theories about reflective thinking and deep-surface learning abound. In order to arrive at the definition for "reflective thinking toward deep learning," this study establishes that reflective thinking toward deep learning refers to a learner's purposeful and conscious activity of manipulating ideas toward meaningful learning and knowledge…

We contend that managers make better decisions when they are better able to tap into their vast storehouses of knowledge than their peers can. More specifically, we contend that accessing their tacit knowledge has the most noticeable and positive impact on their decision quality. Furthermore, techniques for better accessing knowledge can be…