Argues that Mooer's Law has been misinterpreted as concluding that users will not use information retrieval systems that are too difficult or frustrating, when in fact it addresses the reluctance to use any type of system when having information requires more effort than not having it. Proposes an expansion of Mooer's original law. (Author/LRW)

Investigates the modeling of changes in user interest in information filtering systems and develops a new technique for tracking user interest shifts based on a Bayesian approach. Presents an analytical study to establish the rate of convergence for a profile learning module with and without the user interest tracking component. (Author/LRW)

Reports on the progressive investigation of techniques for supporting interactive query reformulation in the TREC (Text Retrieval Conference) Interactive Track. Highlights include methods of term suggestion; interface design to support different system functionalities; an overview of each year's TREC investigation; and relevance to the development…

Discussion of knowledge management, information retrieval, information filtering, and information evaluation focuses on knowledge evaluation and proposes some evaluation methods based on L-grammars which are fuzzy grammars. Applies these methods to the evaluation of documents in SGML and to the evaluation of pages in HTML in the World Wide Web.…

Discusses specialized search engines for information on specific topics on the Internet. Explains reasons for using specialized search engines; highlights search engines in the fields of health care, legal information, and multimedia formats; and provides Web sites that are helpful in finding other specialized search engines. (LRW)

Discussion of XML focuses on indexing techniques for XML documents, grouping them into flat-file, semistructured, and structured indexing paradigms. Highlights include searching techniques, including full text search and multistage search; search result presentations; database and information retrieval system integration; XML query languages; and…

Investigates the consistency of different newspapers in their choice of words when writing about the same news events based on a study of three Finnish newspapers. Concludes that expression inconsistency is a sign of a retrieval problem and that query expansion based on semantic relationships can significantly improve retrieval performance on free…

Discussion of the classification of documents from bibliographic databases focuses on a method of vectorizing reference documents from LISA (Library and Information Science Abstracts) which permits their topological organization using Kohonen's algorithm. Analyzes possibilities of this type of neural network with respect to the development of…

"Sleazeware" is the authors' term for spyware, adware, malware, trackware, foistware, trojans, and other programs that sleaze into computers, either as a hidden component or by tricking someone into downloading them. Once in the machine, the program phones home for purposes ranging from simply reporting where people browse to downloading…

The reliability on technology through the use of electricity is discussed. However, one should be cautious to regain information if the electricity goes off, and must have efficient methods of information retrieval.

A meta-analytical literature review was performed on the literature in which computerized and paper based information retrieval systems were compared. Specifically, online catalogs were compared with card catalogs, and online bibliographic retrieval was compared with searching printed indexes. Studies which included information on relevance,…

A study was conducted to determine the most effective way to organize the data that are being accumulated by the European Documentation and Information System for Education (EUDISED). The study considered types of information services and search facilities which might be used to access the EUDISED data base. Indexing systems were examined and…

In order to identify and explain the reasons for differences in average on-line search rates among terminal installations, the operations and performance of several facilities using the Lockheed DIALOG system for on-line searching of the ERIC data base were studied. Detailed examinations were made of such aspects as the DIALOG system response time…

The following topics are included in this document: (1) evaluation of plans for implementation of new systems; (2) macroevaluation of document retrieval systems; (3) microevaluation of retrospective searching; (4) evaluation of document acquisition functions; evluation of indexing and indexing languages; (5) evaluation of document screening; (6)…

Three specific contributions to the field of information retrieval are presented. The first two describe the establishment of an adaptive, interactive man-machine dialogue that produces a form of unsolicited librarian-like assistance for the user in his selection of index terms to characterize an indexing function. The data set upon which the…