Discusses the basic elements of a global cognitive theory for information retrieval (IR) interaction from a cognitive point of view. Within this framework are outlined the principles underlying the concept of polyrepresentation applied simultaneously to the user's cognitive space and the information space of IR systems. Contains 95 references.…

Presents experimentation results for the TELLTALE system, a dynamic hypertext environment that provides full-text search from a hypertext-style user interface for text corpora that may be garbled by OCR (optical character recognition) or transmission errors, and that may contain languages other than English. (Author/LRW)

Categorizes different theoretical justifications of data fusion into two approaches, examines their implications, analyzes some unsuccessful data fusion experiments, and proposes two conditions for effective data fusion. Results indicate that the efficacy and inter-scheme dissimilarity are good predictors for effectiveness of data fusion.…

With many information retrieval (IR) schemes available, researchers have begun to investigate the benefits of combining results of different IR schemes to improve performance, in the process called "data fusion." This article investigates the predictive power of two variables--similarity of efficacy and dissimilarity of outputs--in simple…

Presents a user-oriented interface for generalized informetric analysis and demonstrates how informetric calculations can be specified through advanced data modeling techniques. Topics include bibliographic data; online information retrieval systems; citation networks; query interface; impact factors; data restructuring; and multi-level…

Compares retrieval performance of the "MLA International Bibliography" and the "Annual Bibliography for English Language and Literature" when searching British, American, and postcolonial writers. Considers earlier studies, implications of results that show MLA retrieves more citations, and future research needs. (LRW)

The Google search engine is growing in popularity and usually shines in performance ratings. This article summarizes findings from a technical paper written by Google's developers in 1998 before anyone had seen Google. Suggests that a careful reader of the paper will be rewarded with a deeper appreciation of the designers' ideas and…

Presents various levels of criteria for judging the quality of abstracts and abstracting. Requirements for abstracts to be read by humans are compared with requirements for those to be searched by computer. Concludes that the wide availability of complete text in electronic form does not reduce the value of abstracts for information retrieval.…

Zipf's law states that if words in a text are arranged in decreasing order of occurrence, then the product of the rank of a word and the number of times it occurs is a constant of that text. Examination of the probabilities of occurrence of multi-word phrases in information retrieval in relation to the probabilities of occurrence of single words…

Examined the search strategies used by researchers and others to search the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database through questionnaires completed by 3,420 users. Results indicate that college professors and educational researchers do a better job searching ERIC, but most end-users should be using better search strategies. (SLD)

In the "Ant World" project, items to be retrieved are "quests" represented by entire collections of judged documents. To save space and time, methods were developed for representing these complex entities in a short string of about 1,000 bytes, called a Digital Information Pheromone (DIP). Principles are presented for…

Reports on a quantitative categorical analysis of metadata elements in the Dublin Core, VRA (Visual Resource Association) Core, REACH (Record Export for Art and Cultural Heritage), and EAD (Encoded Archival Description) metadata schemas, all of which can be used for organizing and describing images. Introduces a new schema comparison methodology…

Proposes a structure for natural language descriptions of the semantic content of visual materials that requires descriptions to be (modified) keywords, phrases, or simple sentences, with components that are grammatical relations common to many languages. This structure makes it easy to implement a collection's descriptions as a relational…

Provides a conceptualization of a communication and information system's infrastructure in order to help campus leaders plan more effectively. Discusses its elements, creating access to information, infrastructure maturity, infrastructure assessment, and technology planning for higher education. (EV)

Aspects of Data Fusion (DF) for information retrieval are explored. Based on a geometrical model of DF, it is shown that in the ideal case, performance of DF for a pair of information retrieval schemes may be approximated by a quadratic polynomial. Compares counter-intuitive cases of DF with cases that behave according to the geometric model. (AEF)