Reviews the steps taken toward UBC (universal bibliographic control) in the past 20 years and critiques some of the shortfalls in the UNESCO/IFLA (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization/International Federation of Library Associations) program. Advances such as electronic publishing are put in context to suggest an…

This article presents an extended version of the convolution-correlation memory model TODAM (theory of distributed associative memory) that eliminates some inadequacies of previous versions and provides a unified treatment of item, associative, and serial-order information. TODAM2 extends the chunking model to provide a general model for episodic…

Reviews research on data mining (DM) and knowledge discovery (KD). Discusses popular conceptions of information growth, the knowledge acquisition process, major elements of the DM process, and evaluation methods. Research on DM and KD is divided into two categories: analysis of numerical databases and analysis of non-numerical or textual…

Introduces a new generalization of inner product measures which removes the aesthetic deficiencies in previous research. Discusses linear similarity measures; proves the existence theorem for acceptable ranking functions in the case of a linear measure; and defines asymptotic inner product measures. (AEF)

Lists and describes the 10 best sources for answering statistical questions that are available for free or at a low cost on the World Wide Web. Statistics search tips, government publishers, almanacs, and newspapers are discussed. (LRW)

Evaluates the effectiveness of using the HTML META tag to improve retrieval of World Wide Web documents through Internet search engines. Analysis of sample searches suggests that the use of the keywords attribute in a META tag substantially improves accessibility whereas use of the description attribute alone does not. (Author/LRW)

Describes an information-retrieval schema that takes into account linguistic variation based on phrases. Introduces the phrase-retrieval hypothesis to replace the keyword-retrieval hypothesis, and discusses natural-language processing systems; syntactical, morphological, and lexico-semantical normalization; and future work. (Author/LRW)

Defines a metasearch tool as one that simultaneously searches multiple search engines or directories and gives the end user a single integrated set of results. Focuses on end-user searching at public-access terminals and compares and evaluates 16 metasearch tools currently available on the World Wide Web. (LRW)

Discusses the adoption of the pinyin Romanization standard over Wade-Giles and considers the impact on retrieval in online library catalogs. Describes an investigation that tested three factors that could influence retrieval efficiency: the number of usable syllables, the average number of letters per syllable, and users' familiarity with the…

Discusses the increase in the quantity and diversity of information available for searching via the Internet and provides a logic-based framework for information discovery that is related to the traditional field of information retrieval. Considers information routing, infomantics, information carriers, information filters, and users' information…

Chronicles the variety of means with which the novelist Michael Crichton has attempted to give his works the appearance of nonfiction. Specific and successful techniques utilized in "Eaters of the Dead" are noted, and the resulting erroneous classifications by the Library of Congress and subsequent catalogers are discussed. (Author)

Discusses interoperability as a key challenge to digital libraries and describes efforts of the Open Archives initiative (formerly Universal Preprint Service initiative) to develop an open architecture that supports simultaneous searching and retrieval of papers from disparate archives. Highlights include scientific information and journal…

Discusses how to increase user satisfaction by designing information retrieval systems that inform the user while the user is interacting online. Models the information processing operations of a user who has received an information message from the system and is stimulated into grasping at a higher understanding of the information need. (Contains…

Uses Kintsch's proposition-based construction-integration theory of discourse comprehension to detail the user coding operations that occur in each of the three subsystems (Perception, Comprehension, Application) in which users process an information retrieval systems (IRS) message. Describes an IRS device made up of two separate parts that enable…

Discusses information retrieval and the use of binary trees as a fast access method for search strategies such as hashing. Proposes new methods based on compact binary trees that provide faster access and more compact storage, explains the theoretical basis, and confirms the validity of the methods through empirical observations. (LRW)