Compares the indexing structure of icons with principles used for traditional indexing. A sample of 15 library homepages was drawn from the total population of the United States library homepages. Semiotics theory was used to study the icons. Analysis and results are outlined. (AEF)

Describes an alternative method for indexing images in an image database. The method consists of manually indexing a selected reference image, and then using retrieval by graphical content to automatically transfer the manually assigned index terms from the reference image to the images to be indexed. (AEF)

Discussion of indexing as a problem-solving activity focuses on an experiment that applied theories and methods from cognitive psychology to study interindexer consistency. Eight indexers (four novice and four experts) used two thesauri to index the same four documents. Three kinds of verbal reports were used to assess cognitive processes. (LRW)

Examines Internet metaphors in the titles of 100 articles published in 1995 and found in three indexing services. Analyzes criteria for assessing the usefulness of metaphors to determine the more appropriate metaphors that might successfully convey to the novice user the purposes and activities possible with the hyperlinked elements and functions…

Discussion of human-computer interfaces focuses on the use of graphical and direct manipulation approaches to improve the user interface. Topics discussed include information seeking; computerized search capabilities, including full-text string searches, index searches, and hypertext; Boolean expressions; dynamic or direct manipulation queries;…

This research is concerned with reusing texts produced by audio describers as a source for automatically deriving shot-level indexing for film and video products. Results reinforce the notion that audio description is not sufficient on its own as a source for generating an index to the image, but it is valuable because it describes what is going…

Examines the structure of medical informatics and the relationship between biomedicine and information science and information technology. Uses co-occurrence analysis of subject headings assigned to items indexed for MEDLINE as well as multidimensional scaling to show seven to eight broad multidisciplinary subject clusters. (Contains 28…

Discussion of indexing moving image documents at the shot level focuses on a study conducted at the National Film Board of Canada. Popular terms supplied by users were compared with terms assigned by professional indexers in the source stockshot collection. Results suggest that indexing images using preiconographic (ofness) and iconographic…

Experimental subjects wrote abstracts of an article using a simplified version of the TEXTNET abstracting assistance software; subjects were presented with either keywords or phrases extracted automatically. Results showed considerable variation among subjects, but 37% found the keywords or phrases "quite" or "very" useful in…

Explains how indexers choose keywords and how results can differ between indexers by focusing on certain properties of the terms rather than on the terms themselves. Based on research in semiotics, cognitive science, discourse analysis, and reading theories. Indexing terms from 833 bibliographic records from an environmental database are analyzed.…

A template for pictorial image description to be used by novice image searchers in recording their descriptions of images was tested; image attribute classes derived in previous research were used to model the template. Results indicated that users may need training and/or more guidance to correctly assign descriptors to higher-level classes.…

Discusses indexing and retrieval for effective searches of digitized images. Reports on an empirical study about criteria for analysis and indexing digitized images, and the different types of user queries done in newspaper image archives in Denmark. Concludes that it is necessary that the indexing represent both a factual and an expressional…

Rosetta, an indexing and retrieval system indexes papers in a collection based on the way they have been described when referenced by other papers in the collection. Using Rosetta, simple natural language queries retrieve high-precision results in which descriptions based on citations clearly summarize retrieved papers, allowing users to quickly…

Proposes a model that assists in understanding indexing on the World Wide Web and presents an experiment assessing the validity of Inverse Document Frequency (IDF) as a term weighting strategy for Web documents. Findings indicate that IDF scores are not stable in the heterogeneous and dynamic context of the Web. (Author/AEF)

Discusses detailed classification systems, sophisticated alphabetical indexing systems and reasons for the abandonment of complex indexing systems. The suggested structure for indexing the Internet or other large electronic collections of documents is based on that of book indexes: specific headings with coined modifications. (Author/AEF)