Discussion of indexing consistency focuses on a study that examined duplicate records in "Information Science Abstracts" to determine how consistent the indexing was. Literature on indexing consistency is reviewed; index terms are discussed, including descriptors and identifiers; and the relationship between indexing depth and…

Introduces navigation as a central concept for information retrieval and for information systems in general. The evolution of information systems is described; navigability as an aid to improve relevance is discussed; and a system under development that attempts to facilitate navigation for information retrieval is described. (31 references) (LRW)

Examines historical and current difficulties in information retrieval, including the tendency of technology, because of the problems of scale and distribution, to make information invisible to users. Attempts to organize networked resources are described, and serendipity is proposed as a model for future retrieval. (two references) (MES)

Discussion of the problem of control in documentary information retrieval (IR) systems focuses on feedback mechanisms. Information needs are discussed, particularly the Problem Oriented Information Need (POIN); the structure of an adaptive IR system is described; and the design of algorithms for automated IR systems is explained. (33 references)…

Discussion of user queries in information retrieval highlights the experimental evaluation of an adaptive linear model that constructs improved query vectors from user preference judgments on a sample set of documents. The performance of this method is compared with that of standard relevance feedback techniques. (28 references) (LRW)

Reports information retrieval experiments comparing the performance of a probabilistic retrieval model that incorporates interdocument links with the simpler spreading activation strategy. Results indicated that the overall improvement obtained by including hypertext links in the retrieval model was low. (30 references) (EA)

Discussion of online searching in the humanities focuses on a comparison of the retrieval from two databases which cover philosophical materials, Philosopher's Index and FRANCIS. Retrieval performance measures are described, including precision and number of relevant records, and the results are discussed. The article concludes with a…

Describes a new effectiveness measure as an alternative to the traditional evaluation measures of recall and precision in information retrieval systems. The statistical approach--which compares two retrieval algorithms--is explained, the information needs of the user are considered, and an experiment with a test collection of abstracts is…

Describes a new method for automatic indexing and retrieval called latent semantic indexing (LSI). Problems with matching query words with document words in term-based information retrieval systems are discussed, semantic structure is examined, singular value decomposition (SVD) is explained, and the mathematics underlying the SVD model is…

This study found that a Kohonen self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm for browsing can categorize a large and eclectic Internet-information space into manageable sub-spaces that users can navigate to find relevant home pages. An automatically generated concept-space algorithm for searching was shown to enhance keyword-based Internet searching.…

Compares results of two empirical studies in which relevance criteria were elicited from individuals seeking information to resolve information problems. Results provide evidence that a finite range of criteria exists and that these criteria are applied consistently across types of information users, problem situations, and source environments.…

Describes a scalable, parallel, relational database-drive information retrieval engine. To support portability across a wide range of execution environments, all algorithms adhere to the SQL-92 standard. By incorporating relevance feedback algorithms, accuracy is enhanced over prior database-driven information retrieval efforts. Presents…

Describes a study that compared a hypertext-based bibliographic retrieval system with a traditional Boolean-based system. Results, conducted with novice and experienced searchers, revealed that the Boolean system performed better for tasks with a large number of relevant items, and that searcher experience level did not play a significant role.…

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…

Investigates the application of a relevance ranking technique, cover density ranking that is based on term proximity and cooccurrence for information retrieval on the World Wide Web that augments coordination ranking when one to three search terms are used. Compares cover density ranking with standard ranking methods and discusses implementation…