Examines three aspects of keyword searching as a possible solution to subject search problems in online public access catalogs (OPACs). Discusses search results, user satisfaction, and how keyword searching and controlled vocabulary searching are offered in OPAC interfaces. Concludes that keyword searching and controlled vocabulary searching…

Reports results of a study investigating effects of four user characteristics on users' mental models of information retrieval (IR) systems. Findings indicated that educational and professional status, academic background, and computer experience had significant effects in differentiating users on their factor scores. First language had a…

Describes the Gateway to Educational Materials Project (GEM) at the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology at Syracuse University. Explicates the GEM metadata element set and how GEM metadata is created. Discusses the syntactic binding of GEM metadata and the mechanisms for its distribution. Concludes with a brief discussion of existing…

Creating archival descriptions in a digital environment and communicating across the Internet is not the same as traditional paper-based communication. As in other cultural domains, in archival description the medium influences the structure and content of information. The SIASFI Project and the Online Guide to the State Archives of Florence are…

In the case of digital collections of text, provision of a simple unified user interface faces several challenges, among them a tension between intellectual adequacy and simplicity of access. Examines the question of how to allow cross-collection searching and display while preserving the variation in texts and their markup and points to…

Reports findings from an exploratory study investigating working notes created during encoding and external storage (EES) processes by human search intermediaries (librarians at the University of North Texas) using a Boolean information retrieval (IR) system. Implications for the design of IR interfaces and further research is discussed.…

Discusses issues related to natural language processing, including theoretical developments; natural language understanding; tools and techniques; natural language text processing systems; abstracting; information extraction; information retrieval; interfaces; software; Internet, Web, and digital library applications; machine translation for…

Presents six principles for building and evaluating Web-based information retrieval interfaces: help the user develop an understanding of the interface and search process, judge the value of continuing search paths, and refine search queries or search topics; avoid complex navigation; make system actions explicit; and provide verbal labels…

This research examined the communication process between users and online catalogs by gathering empirical data about user performance on different types of online catalogs. An experiment was designed to test whether content and layout of bibliographic displays influenced effectiveness of the interface between online catalogs and users. Data are…

Explores the concepts of interaction and interactivity presented in different theoretical models in the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI) and information-seeking/searching behavior, and relates these to information retrieval (IR) research. Suggests that interaction in HCI is primarily concerned with establishing a user/system dialogue at…

This study investigates the nature, manifestations, and behavior of successive searching by users in digital environments, and establishes criteria for use in the design of information-retrieval interfaces and systems supporting successive-searching behavior. Study includes two projects--one based at the University of North Texas, one at the…

Summer 1995 saw the release, with considerable media attention, of draft versions of Sun Microsystems' Java computer programming language and the HotJava browser. Java has been heralded as the latest "killer" technology in the Internet explosion. Sun Microsystems and numerous companies including Microsoft, IBM, and Netscape have agreed…

This paper focuses on the development, adoption, and integration of resource discovery, knowledge management, and/or knowledge sharing interfaces such as interactive portals, and the use of the library's World Wide Web presence to increase the availability and usability of information services. The introduction addresses changes in library…

This book is intended to help librarians and others to produce databases of better value and quality, especially if they have had little previous experience in database construction. Drawing upon almost 40 years of experience in the field of information retrieval, this book emphasizes basic principles and approaches rather than in-depth and…

Presents a World Wide Web page model that reacts to pre-defined events and performs actions like "prefetching" automatically. Discusses the active index, conceptual page model; design of the client system, status of the current implementation, prefetching algorithm, an experiment of the algorithm, experimental results of the active index…