Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> So the implications of this to me are to _automatically_ expand the
> user's query to include the subjects attached to an authority for which
> the user's query is a 'non-preferred' term. [Of course, this
> 'expansion' could be technically accomplished at the indexing stage or
> the query stage; the effect on the user experience could be the same
> either way].
>
> It's far from obvious to me that this is necessarily better than
> offering the user the _option_ of expanding their search, with a 'did
> you mean' link. It will take some experimentation and testing with
> actual users to see which is better.
Jane Greenberg wrote quite some time ago about user studies [1] that led her to conclude that synonyms and narrower terms should be automatically expanded in search, and broader and related terms should be offered to users as options for expanding/changing their search after seeing the results they get. At Indiana University, partly inspired by this work, we have an image collection online that does automated query expansion on synonyms and narrower terms based on the syndetic structure of the LC TGM I. The site is at <http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/cushman> and we wrote about it in [2].
I think the expansion logic applied here matches *some* of what's being discussed in this thread, but not all. Google's implementation of the "did you mean" feature sets a strong user expectation that we shouldn't break. Therefore I think that terminology isn't appropriate for synonyms (although different vocabularies depending on their scope make different decisions about what's a synonym and what isn't!), but rather for suspected typos. These are two very different things.
Jenn
[1] I *think these are the right citations - been a while since I read these:
Greenberg, J. (2001), "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. (2001), "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.
[2] Dalmau, Michelle, Randall Floyd, Dazhi Jiao, and Jenn Riley. "Integrating Thesaurus Relationships into Search and Browse in an Online Photograph Collection." Library Hi Tech 23, no. 3 (2005): 425-452.
========================
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 Sun May 10 2009 - 12:24:07 EDT