Examines the information seeking and evaluative behavior of attorneys and explores the dynamic mental models attorneys construct. Highlights include domain-specific relevance; cognitive maps; current research on the retrieval performance of two full-text legal databases, LEXIS and WESTLAW; and implications of attorneys' mental models for legal…

Discusses topical relevance and situational relevance, which takes into account the impact of the retrieval system on the user, in the context of medicine. Topics addressed include scientific validity; limitations of current evaluation methodology, including recall and precision; and a framework for future retrieval research based on an…

Examines the importance of relevance criteria in end-user evaluation of valuable or high relevant information as users move through six stages of information seeking proposed by Kuhlthau (1994) and as they selected, obtained, and read information sources. Respondents were enrolled in graduate studies at the University of North Texas and Texas…

This study of students at the University of Tampere (Finland) analyzes how changes in relevance criteria are related to changes in problem stages during the task performance process in information retrieval. Provides a conceptual framework, including Kuhlthau's information search process model and prior knowledge; and compares bibliographic…

Examines trends in Web searching, including the proposed AOL and Time Warner merger; minibrowsers; micropayments for information; inability of search engines to keep up with Web growth; distributed search engines; human-compiled directories; increasing relevance to meet user needs; browser-free searching; whole document queries; and introducing…

Describes Semio, a company founded in 1996 that uses semiology to provide straightforward access to information. Discusses the text-mining engine at the core of the company's software; products; focus on the intranet market; competitors; partnership with corporate portals. (AEF)

Analyzes certain features of work tasks and relates these features to types of information people are looking for and using in their tasks, patterning of search strategies for obtaining information and relevance assessments in choosing retrieved documents. The major claim is that these information activities are systematically connected to task…

This study investigates the relationships between the use of a zoom tool, the terms they supply to describe the image, and the type of image being viewed. Participants were assigned to two groups, one with access to the tool and one without, and were asked to supply terms to describe forty images, divided into four categories: landscape, portrait,…

The Thesaurus for Education Systems in Europe (TESE-2009 edition) is a multilingual thesaurus and a robust information retrieval tool focusing on European education systems and policies. It is specifically designed to cover the indexation needs of the Eurydice network and to facilitate information retrieval on Eurydice's central website. It can…

Since the late 1990s, few case studies on implementation of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) have appeared in the literature. How has or hasn't the landscape changed? This article reports on the experience of EAD planning and implementation at the University of Minnesota Libraries and suggests that though many of the lessons learned by early…

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a model for an intertextuality-oriented classification scheme for fiction, to be used by Humanities scholars studying fiction. The methodology used includes a literature review to establish background, followed by the development of a classification scheme by modifying and adding to existing fiction…

A realistic applied chemical engineering experimental design and statistical analysis project is documented in this article. This project has been implemented as part of the professional development and applied statistics courses at Villanova University over the past five years. The novel aspects of this project are that the students are given a…

Managing data collected from online surveys may be a straightforward process involving no more than downloading a spreadsheet from a Web survey host and presenting descriptive statistics associated with each questionnaire item. On the other hand, if the evaluation objectives require more complex analysis and presentation of the data, it will be…

This book is designed primarily to help users find meaningful words for natural language, or free-text, computer searching of bibliographic and textual databases in the social and behavioral sciences. Additionally, it covers many socially relevant and technical topics not covered by the usual literary thesaurus, therefore it may also be useful for…

In an attempt to measure on-line searching performance, test searches of one question conducted by three bibliographic searchers are analysed to determine the effects of search strategy on results. The study reviews retrieved citations for relevance, calculating precision values, and estimated recall for each search. Performance analysis reveals…