A report of several comparisons designed to measure the retrieval effectiveness of machined-aided indexing and manual indexing. (Author)

The traditional concern with relevance or nonrelevance of unexamined documents is misplaced, and traditional measures of effectiveness should be replaced by estimates of direct utility of examined documents. (Author)

This volume is a compilation of the papers presented at the 10th ASIS (American Society for Information Science) workshop on classification research. Major themes include the social and cultural informatics of classification and coding systems, subject access and indexing theory, genre analysis and the agency of documents in the ordering of…

In part I (JASIS, March-April 1973) the author proposed a methodology for evaluating a retrieval system based on how much users are willing to pay to use the system. Part II sets forth steps in testing the methodology through the analysis of underlying assumptions and through experimentation. (3 references) (Author/RS)

Substantial alterations to a system often have little or no effect on particular collections. This may be due to poor separation of relevant and non-relevant documents. The paper presents a procedure for characterizing this separation, which can show whether proposed modifications of the base system are likely to be useful. (8 references)…

Retrieval performance with automatic term classifications for three test collections has been variable. This paper attempts to discover why. The real difference between the collections is in the separation of relevant from non-relevant documents. The separation is so poor that classification cannot be expected to succeed. (14 references)…

A decision theory approach is used to model the information retrieval decision problem of which documents to retrieve from a library collection in response to a specific user query for information. Thorough discussions of decision theory and Bayesian statistics are presented. (19 references) (Author/SJ)

The techniques of search strategy design for substructure searches of the Wiswesser Line Notation (WLN) file are described in detail. The Index Chemicus Registry System'' was used. (13 references) (Author/SM)

The relative retrieval efficiency of the title searching technique and the index term searching technique is so close that the choice of one method or the other must be primarily on economic grounds. (9 references) (Author)

Comments are made on several specific questionable aspects of experimental design in the Second Cranfield project." 8 references. (Author)

Discusses use of associative search techniques and theoretical approaches to document retrieval problems contrasting two different ways of improving system performance: appending associative search techniques to conventional document retrieval systems and designing document retrieval systems based on probabilistic design principles. Four…

Presents an algorithm for use in online information retrieval which will generate a list of bibliographic citations derived from a preselected relevant document and which measures the relatedness of retrieved items to the preselected document. A test of the algorithm in retrieving medical literature is described. Two figures are included. (JL)

Analyzes the formal properties, structural consequences, similarities, and differences of link indicators, brackets, and cohesion separators in the query languages employed in information retrieval. Eleven figures, a 32-item reference list, and appendices on Extended Backus Notation and the formal definition of the Formal Relevance Language are…

Retrieval experiments with the Cranfield collection of 1,400 documents used strategies based on a probabilistic model for an initial search and intermediate search when no relevant documents were known. Results show initial strategy is better than conventional strategies in retrieval effectiveness and number of queries needed to retrieve…

In order to compare effects of input processing on information retrieval in three databases, 25 articles from a specific journal were examined. Tables and Venn diagrams show retrieval results from different manual and computer searches. The relation between document surrogates and subject matter of the documents is discussed. (SW)