-----Original Message-----
>From: Ted P Gemberling <tgemberl_at_UAB.EDU>
>
>To tell you the truth, the matter of consistency is one area where I may
>differ with Thomas Mann somewhat. I don't think it's absolutely
>necessary that books and other resources always be indexed consistently.
Consistency is important if you have only one way to get at or retrieve information. So if you get only one try at a subject search, then it's very important that your search bring up everything that should have been given that topical heading. But we don't have only one try. Searching is a very iterative process and there are lots of ways that we find information -- through subject headings, through keywords in the title, through full text searches, by following citations, by reading reviews, through recommendations from friends and colleagues. If we want to evaluate success in searching, we need to evaluate overall success, not just success in one retrieval method.
I've always felt very cautious about full-text searching and it is fairly easy to find examples of cases where full text searching fails but controlled vocabulary or classification succeeds. It's also easy enough to find examples where full text searching works better than topical headings. It's not that one is better than the other but that there are lots of different information needs and lots of different kinds of information resources. What works in one instance may not work in another when all of the variables are factored in.
It seems to me that we should be trying to increase the number of different routes that users can take to get to information, knowing that none will be complete and none will be entirely consistent and predictable.
kc
Karen Coyle - on the Road
kcoyle_at_kcoyle.net
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Mon May 21 2007 - 09:12:38 EDT