Abstracts of Articles in the Information Retrieval Area Selected by Gerard Salton

s of Articles in the Information Retrieval Area Selected by Gerard Salton The Possible Effect of Abstracting Guidelines on Retrieval Performance of Free-Text Searching Raya Fidel A survey of abstracting guidelines used to enhance free-text retrieval. Editors consider content of abstracts and their language as a primary factor in retrieval enhancement. Requirements about the type of abstracts, i.e. informative or indicative, and and about their length are not affected by the capability of free-text retrieval. While instructions about content and language of abstracts indicate that better control and coordination results in better retrieval performance, it is not clear as yet in what way type and length of abstracts is affecting retrieval. From: Information Processing and Management Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 309-316, 1986. End -Use r Information-Seeking in the Energy Field: Implications for End_User Access to Doe/Recon Databases Donald Case, Chr is t ine L. Borgman, and Charles T. Meadow A software research and development project for the U.S. Department of Energy provided an opportunity to explore the information-seeking behavior of energy researchers. The DOE project, entitled "Online Access to Knowledge," or "OAK," is developing a microcomputer interface for improving end-user access to energy databases. Interviews with 18 researchers and 34 research intermediaries in energy-related fields indicate a reliance on databases as sources of information. The interview data suggest a migration of searchers toward commercial systems that offer the widest choice of database coverage. Despite previous efforts to encourage direct use of RECON databases, most energy researchers interviewed preferred that others do their searching for them. Librarians and technical information specialists, although recognizing the potential for researchers to use databases directly, doubted that such use will be common in the near future. However, this and other studies suggest a trend towards first-hand use of databases by the end-users in the energy field, particularly young researchers. Preliminary testing the OAK software indicated that end-users will search, if provided with adequate tools. These ffmdings are discussed in the light of previous research on the information gathering habits of scientists and engineers. From: Information Processing and Management Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 299-308, 1986. A Novice User's Interface to Information Retrieval Systems R.G. Crawford and H.S. Becker This report describes the design of an interface for information retrieval systems intended for novice users. The main design goal is to provide a system that can be used without training, external help or documentation. Design decisions are largely based on the literature on human factors in interactive computer systems. The major design features of the system are the use of menus and fill-in-the-blank modes of command entry, display windowing and an extensive two-level online help facility providing step by step guidance for the user during command/query entry. A preliminary evaluation of the system indicates that it can in fact be used by people unfamiliar with information retrieval systems, without the aid of any external help, documentation, or training. From: lnformationProcessing and Management Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 287-298, 1986. Unanswered Questions in the Design of Controlled Vocabularies Elaine Svenonius The issue of free-text versus controlled vocabulary is examined in this article. The history of the issue which is seen as beginning with the debate over title term indexing in the last century, is reviewed and then attention is turned to questions which have not been satisfactorily addressed by previous research. The point is made that these questions need to be answered if we are to design retrieval tools, such as thesauri, upon rational basis. From: Journal of the American Society for lnformation Science 37(5): 331-340, 1986. A Critical Analysis of Vector Space Model for Information Retrieval Vijay V. Raghavan and S.K.M. Wong Notations and definition necessary to identify the concepts and relationships that are important in modelling informationretrieval objects and processes in the context of vector spaces are presented. Earlier work on the use of vector model is evaluated in terms of the concepts introduced and certain problems and inconsistencies are identified. More importantly, this investigation should lead to a clear understanding of the issues and problems in using the vector space model in information retrieval. From: Journal of the American Society for Information Science 37(5): 279-287, 1986.