Describes efforts in supporting information retrieval from OCR (optical character recognition) degraded text. Reports on approaches used in an automatic cataloging and searching contest for books in multiple languages, including a vector space retrieval model, an n-gram indexing method, and a weighting scheme; and discusses problems of Asian…

Explores what might be the optimal query expansion (QE) processing method with semantically coded thesauri. Examines whether QE via semantically coded thesauri terminology is more effective in the "automatic" or "interactive" processing environment. Results revealed that synonyms and partial synonyms and narrower terms are…

Describes experiments in the retrieval of spoken documents in multimedia systems. Problems in spoken document retrieval are discussed, and a voice mail application is explained that combines state-of-the-art speech recognition with established document retrieval technologies to provide an effective and efficient retrieval tool. (Author/LRW)

Provides an overview of robots that retrieve World Wide Web documents and index data and then store it in a database. Nine robot-generated databases are described, including record content, services, search features, and sample search results; and sidebars discuss the controversy about Web robots and other resource discovery tools. (LRW)

Discussion of information and information retrieval focuses on the connection between a calculus defined on channels and information retrieval, and proposes a model of an information retrieval system based on this calculus. Topics include conditionality, situation theory, the flow of information, channel theory, and four principles for an…

Discusses improving the quality of satisfaction of information needs through the use of information retrieval systems. The characteristics of information need are investigated; a new instrument in information retrieval systems is proposed which takes into account different components of information need; and future research is suggested.…

Discusses the problems and current research techniques being explored in the area of Cross Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) for finding documents in languages other than the original query. Discusses language identification methods, techniques for automatically generating queries in other languages, and retrieving and merging query results.…

Investigates an automatic method for Cross Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) that utilizes the multilingual Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus to translate Spanish natural-language queries into English. Results indicate that for Spanish, the UMLS Metathesaurus-based CLIR method is at least equivalent to if not better than…

Discusses both the opportunities and challenges to academic librarians of information resources available on the Internet. Notes that, beyond mechanical expertise, there are intellectual problems regarding research skills and critical assessment that have increased with the sheer amount of information available. The academic librarian's role is to…

Presents a framework for interface design that provides people with flexible control over different views for an information space, particularly on the World Wide Web. The agileviews framework defines overviews, previews, reviews, peripheral views, and shared views that help people make decisions about where they should focus attention during…

Discussion of office document search procedures focuses on variable bit-block compression (VBC) signature files and extends VBC signatures for document ranking. Topics include weighted VBC and aggregate VBC; word size, in bits, of term frequencies; storage and retrieval; logarithmic scaling and linear scaling; and ranking performance. (LRW)

The volume of data available through literature and databases on the internet is valuable to students as resources. Describes an integrated approach that involves the use of the library, literature, and internet databases. (Author/SAH)

A survey of British adult students returning to education found they lacked basic as well as information literacy skills and have difficulty with information retrieval and use of learning resource centers. Partnerships between adult educators as facilitators and librarians as teachers are needed. (SK)

These six articles discuss knowledge discovery in databases (KDD). Topics include data mining; knowledge management systems; applications of knowledge discovery; text and Web mining; text mining and information retrieval; user search patterns through Web log analysis; concept analysis; data collection; and data structure inconsistency. (LRW)

Information retrieval (IR) is driven by a process that decides whether a document is about a query. The purpose of this article is to consider "aboutness" from a fundamental, neutral perspective, to shed light on the nature of aboutness by formalizing properties describing it, and to define a set of reasonable properties of aboutness,…