PERSPECTIVES ON . . .

Indexing

EDITOR

Lois F. Lunin 922 24th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037-2229, and the Department of Radiology, Cor- nell University Medical College, New York, New York 70027

GUEST EDITOR

Raya Fidel Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98 195 Introduction and Overview

The design of an information system assumesthat the tice. The first article “User-Centered Indexing” by Raya system has one or more users who will search for infor- Fidel sets the scene. It briefly describes the place of user- mation, using keys appropriate to that system. Although centered approaches in research about indexing and the technologies to process information have become in- shows the position of each article published in this issue finitely more sophisticated in the latter part of this cen- within a research framework. Using a different angle, Jes- tury, recognition that indexing is critical to the efficient sica Milstead creates a new framework in her article, operation of systems is not new. Early- to mid-20th cen- “Needs for Research in Indexing,” when she answers tury systems concentrated on various techniques such as what research practicing indexers need to support their metalanguages and codes to characterize documents and work. She uncovers issues that require scientific investi- to make them amenable to systems then available, such gations in the areas of cognitive processesof both the in- as punched cards. dex creator and user, vocabulary control, and structure Keys in one form or another are still needed, and new and layout of indexes. kinds are called for because technologies today make it Two articles address specific aspectsof indexing. Sara possible to process and store many more forms of infor- Shatford Layne focuses on groupings of images in her mation than text or numeric data. These new forms- article, “Some Issuesin the Indexing of Images.” She first such as images; photographs; video, still and motion; defines four distinct categories of image attributes-bio- multimedia; and sound-pose new challenges to index- graphical, subject, exemplified, and relationship-and ing. Academicians as well as several commercial compa- then explains why it is important to provide accessto nies have recognized many of these challenges and are useful groupings of images, rather than to individual im- conducting research or offering systems that index auto- ages,and the issues involved in creating such groupings. matically, use bar code, OCR/ICR (Optical Character In his article, “Indexing and Retrieval Performance: The Recognition/Intelligent Character Recognition), mark- Logical Evidence,” Dagobert Soergel addressesa topic senseboxes, and use neural net processing, pattern rec- whose popularity faded at the end of the 1970s: How ognition, and, of course, full text with varying combina- does indexing affect retrieval performance? Pointing to tions of human and automated indexing. the complexity involved and the difficulty in achieving This issue of Perspectives takes a first step to look at reliable results in empirical studies, he first defines index- the intellectual or cognitive aspectsof indexes of text and ing characteristics that might affect performance and images from which researchers and system designers then examines in detail, using logical evidence, their may derive new principles or refine those in use. It ex- effect on retrieval. plores ways to think about the new needs and new capa- Three articles examine indexing of specific materials. bilities. The rapidly developing Internet and the increas- “Access to Nonbook Materials: The Limits of Subject ing number of databases worldwide emphasize the im- Indexing for Visual and Aural Languages” is the title of portance of good indexing as well as the growing Elaine Svenonius’s contribution. She uses an aboutness complexity and difficulties in that analysis. Examples of model of indexing to examine some materials with non- these complexities are systems to index e-mail messages textual information. She concludes that there are in- that administrations must by law save, and authentica- stances that defy subject indexing, not becauseof the na- tion of documents in digital form to verify the original or ture of the medium per se, but because it is being used indicate a modification. While technologies ranging for nondocumentary purposes. Helen Tibbo’s article is from smart cards to supercomputers and software with entitled “Indexing for the Humanities.” She demon- gophers appear to receive the most attention at confer- strates that there are two major reasons to require new ences and in publications, the heart-indeed the soul- controlled vocabularies and indexing framework for the of many systems is the indexing, whether automated or humanities: (a) humanists use a wide variety of textual, human. graphic, and aural materials in their research; and (b) in- A recurring motif in this issue of Perspectives is the dexing and surrogating models from the sciencesare not need to consider user needs in indexing theory and prac- adequate to meet the information access needs of hu- manists. 0 1994 John Wiley &Sons, Inc. The seventh article, by Hans Wellisch, examines the difference between indexing different types of materials. Jessica L. Milstead is principal of the JELEM Com- In “Book and Periodical Indexing,” Wellisch develops a pany. She has undertaken assignments in indexing sys- typology of units of verbal texts, starting from books tem design and thesaurus development for a varied cli- written by a single author to articles in periodicals. He entele. She has also been responsible for production of discusses problems in indexing each type, and at the bibliographic databases,and has carried out research on sametime emphasizesthat indexing of all types must ful- the state of the art of subject analysis. fill certain basic functions. These functions are pre- Dagobert Soergel is Professor of Information Studies, scribed by indexing standards. Concluding this issue is University of Maryland, and an information systems James Anderson’s article “Standards for Indexing: Re- consultant. He has authored Organizing Information vising the American National Standard Guidelines (1985) which received the ASIS Best Book Award, Zn- 239.4.” He describes the nature of standards in general, dexing Languages and Thesauri (1974) and numerous and of the current draft of the Standard Guidelines, and papers. the practical and intellectual work that was required for Elaine Svenonius has degrees in philosophy and li- the creation of the new standard. brary and information science. Her research has been Although this issue covers several aspectsof indexing, and continues to be in the area of bibliographical control, including reference to automated indexing, space has including cataloging, classification, and indexing. Her limited its scope to these articles. It is planned to include particular focus has been on philosophical analysis and other aspects,such as specifics of automated indexing, in on the design of documentary languages in the auto- a later issue. mated environment. Helen Tibbo, a faculty member of the School of Infor- mation and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has done extensive research in Lois F. Lunin Raya Fidel the area of information retrieval for the humanities. Her dissertation from the University of Maryland, Abstract- ing, Online Searching, and the Humanities, won both the About the Authors American Society for Information Science’s Doctoral Forum Award and the Association for Library and Infor- James D. Anderson is Associate Dean and Professor mation Science Education’s Special Research Award. in the School of Communication, Information, and Li- This work is the basis of Abstracting, Information Re- brary Studies, Rutgers University, where he specializes trieval, and the Humanities: Providing Accessto Histori- in the design of textual databases and vocabulary man- cal Literature, published in 1993 in the Association of agement systems for information retrieval. College and Research Libraries Publications in Librari- Raya Fidel, after working as a science at the anship monograph series. Hebrew University in Jerusalem, received her Ph.D. Hans H. Wellisch was born in Vienna, Austria and from the University of Maryland in 1982. Currently she went to Israel in 1949, after he lived in Sweden for 10 is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington years. In Israel, he was Head of the Information Center of where she teaches courses about indexing and abstract- Tahal, a civil engineering company specializing in water ing, conceptual database design, and information sci- resources development. He also taught indexing and cat- ence. Because she maintains that design of information aloging, and wrote the first Hebrew book on the manage- retrieval systemsshould be based on an understanding of ment of special libraries. In 1969 he joined the faculty of users’ information needs and behavior, her research has the College of Library and Information Services of the been focused on online searching behavior. Her work has University of Maryland, from which he received his been published in various professional journals. PhD. Since 1987 he has been Professor Emeritus. His Sara Shatford Layne has a B.A. and M.F.A. from interests center on all aspects of bibliographic control. Stanford University and an M.L.S. from the University In 1979, Dr. Wellisch received the first H. W. Wilson of California, Los Angeles, where she is a doctoral candi- Company Award for Excellence in Indexing for the in- date in the Graduate School of Library and Information dex he compiled for his book The Conversion of Scripts. Science. She worked as a theatrical costume designer for His most recent book is Indexingfrom A to 2. He is ac- nine years and is now a cataloger at UCLA. She is also a tive in the work of NISO on standards for information consultant to the Index of Medieval Medical Images and work, most recently on thesaurus construction and in- to the Art Information Task Force. dexing.