Signposts on the Information Superhighway

SUMMARY Users of the Information Superhighway need signposts to find their way to appropriate, accurate and current information. Given the sheer quantity of information, intellectual indexing is more relevant than ever, complementing and augmenting automatic keyword indexing. Signposts come in various forms including browser bookmarks, local, on-site and remote lists, indexes and directories, temporary search engine results, and metadata. The considerable body of theory on vocabulary control for online database searching can be adapted to index construction for the Internet. At the same time, there are unresolved issues concerning information quality, indexing decisions, and standards.