-----Original Message-----
From: "Riley, Jenn" <jenlrile_at_INDIANA.EDU>
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Sent: 3/31/08 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] word tools
> Automatic expansion is a dangerous except when the number of
> retrievals is relatively small. Seems like a better way to go
> would be is to give what was requested, but use something
> along the lines of wikipedia's disambiguation pages to help
> direct the user to other contexts. I agree in principle that
> a good system should automatically adjust the search in
> intelligent ways.
The research I know of in this area suggests automatic expansion is effective for synonyms and narrower terms, and that providing users with a way to expand on request broader and related terms. I get these two articles confused sometimes, but at least one of them talks about this issue at length, and I think they're a good place to start:
Greenberg, J. (2001a), "Automatic query expansion via lexical-semantic relationships", Journal of
the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 52 No. 6, pp. 402-15.
Greenberg, J. (2001b), "Optimal query expansion (QE) processing methods with semantically
encoded structured thesauri terminology", Journal of the American Society for Information
Science and Technology, Vol. 52 No. 6, pp. 487-98.
I agree the landscape gets much more complex when you have the variety of meanings Eric used in his examples - the "did you mean" approach for multiple senses of a query makes sense to me.
Jenn
========================
Jenn Riley
Metadata Librarian
Digital Library Program
Indiana University - Bloomington
Wells Library W501
(812) 856-5759
www.dlib.indiana.edu
Inquiring Librarian blog: www.inquiringlibrarian.blogspot.com
Received on Fri Apr 04 2008 - 11:08:44 EDT