Seamless Searching of Numeric and Textual Resources

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Seamless Searching of Numeric and Textual
Resources
Michael Buckland
School of Information Management and
Systems University of California, Berkeley
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The Significance of Vocabulary

• An economic claim Vocabulary problems reduce the
  benefits and return on investment in information
  services.
• Vocabulary is used for indexicality, therefore
  issues of identity are central to LIS.
• Vocabulary is central to digital libraries.
• Vocabulary central to explaining the history of
  conceptions of LIS!

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God --- Knowableness --- History of doctrines
--- Early church, ca. 30-600 --- Congresses.
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Economic Rationale

• Massive investment in repositories
• Large investment in categorization schemes
  classifications, thesauri, concept codes,
  headings,
• Categorization schemes usually specialized and
  stylized
• Increasingly unfamiliar to searchers, hence
  ineffective, inefficient use

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Remedy
Support for searching unfamiliar metadata
vocabularies Interface to translate searchers
vocabulary into systems vocabulary.
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Examples
Automobile import, export data (Census Bureau)
Automobiles?
No data.
Cars?
Railway or tramway stock
(Passenger motor vehicles, spark ignition engine.)
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in Library of Congress Classification
TL 205
in U.S. Patent Classification
180/280
in Standard Industrial Classification
3711
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Example Coastal pollution
F SU COASTAL POLLUTION 0
F TW COASTAL POLLUTION SUMMARIZE SUBJECTS
MeSH Seawater Water pollution Bacteria Water
microbiology Air pollution Environmental
monitoring Bathing beaches
LCSH Marine pollution Coastal zone
management Water --- Pollution Petroleum industry
and trade Beach erosion Coasts Barrier islands
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International Harmonized Commodity Classification
System Computer

• HS 84 Nuclear reactors, boilers, machines and
  mechanical appliances
• HS 8471 Automatic data processing machines and
  units thereof, magnetic or optical readers,
  machines for transcribing data
• HS 847120 Digital auto data proc mach contng in
  the same housing a CPU and input output device

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INSPEC Thesaurus subdomain-based indexes

• Water subdomain Fission reactor safety
  Fission reactor fuel Polymers Organic
  insulating materials Water supply Cable
  insulation Insulation testing and Insulating
  oils.
• Biology subdomain Water Biomechanics
  Physiological models Neurophysiology Cellular
  effects of radiation.
• Information Studies subdomain Agriculture
  Natural resources Forecasting theory Operations
  research Erosion.

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Example Vietnam War.
U.C. MELVYL Online Catalog
FIND XSU VIETNAM WAR Search Results 0 records
FIND XSU VIETNAMESE CONFLICT Search Results
4,190 records
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Emanuel Goldberg Aerial photography using a
Drachen
Example Tethered balloons. English
Aerostat. German Drachen ( Kite in dictionary)
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Entry vocabulary search interfaces

• Software and algorithms map natural language
  vocabulary to specialized metadata terms.
• Allows users to enter ordinary language queries
  while taking advantage of existing subject
  headings, categorization
• Uses co-occurrence statistics to link users
  ordinary language terms to system vocabularies
• Statistical association between lexical items in
  titles and abstracts and the systems metadata
  vocabulary
• Suggests most likely system vocabulary

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Thesaurus navigation

• Facilitates browsing where structure is present
  Broader, narrower, related terms
• Guides searcher to other parts of the structure

Retrieval set analysis

• Navigation within micro-domain

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Web access WWW forms-based application supported
by PerlSupports searches on remote
repositoriesFour subdomain dictionaries in
three databases--- BIOSIS (Biological
abstracts) subdomain water--- INSPEC
subdomains information science, water ---
U.S. Patent Office classification
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Statement of work

• Varied prototype Entry Vocabulary Modules.
• Unintrusive development of EVMs by agents
• Sensitivity to subdomains.
• Natural language processing to augment
  statistical term frequency.
• Recommendations for metadata codebooks for
  numeric databases.
• www.sims.berkeley.edu/metadata/