Indexing for the humanities

Tibbo, Helen R.

doi:10.1002/(sici)1097-4571(199409)45:8<607::aid-asi16>3.0.co;2-x

Cited by 40 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…As the body of humanistic scholarship grows at an unprecedented rate, the storage and retrieval challenges facing indexers, catalogers, and users of humanistic materials are exacerbated." 3 The problems of information retrieval from full-text databases have been well documented since at least the 1980s, 4 and, yet, there still seems to be an assumption that full-text searching is the solution to all information retrieval problems. As Peter Jackson and Isabelle Moulinier warn, "Exaggerated claims for these technologies, which suggest that computer programs can somehow 'understand' the meanings of words or the intentions of users, are counterproductive."…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subject Retrieval from Full-Text Databases in the Humanities

East¹

2007

pla

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This paper examines the problems involved in subject retrieval from full-text databases of secondary materials in the humanities. Ten such databases were studied and their search functionality evaluated, focussing on factors such as Boolean operators, document surrogates, limiting by subject area, proximity operators, phrase searching, wildcards, weighting of search terms, limiting by type of document, controlled vocabulary indexing and ranking, and display of search results. The author suggests ways in which full-text searching might be improved, whether by enhancement of database records, by introduction of enhanced search functionality, or by the education of searchers in more effective search techniques. The conclusion is that current digitization projects are not producing databases that meet the needs of scholars.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subject Retrieval from Full-Text Databases in the Humanities

East¹

2007

pla

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“…Many previous studies on art image retrieval focused exclusively on the concept‐based approach (Besser, 1990, 1991; Enser, 1995; Enser & McGregor, 1992; Hastings, 1995a, 1995b; Layne, 1994; Markey, 1984, 1988; Petersen, 1990; Tibbo, 1994; Walker & Thoma, 1990). New technologies have placed the emphasis on automatic image indexing and content‐based retrieval, although it is not clear how the retrieval functionality of these systems correlates with image information needs of real users.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An analysis of image queries in the field of art history

Chen

2001

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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This study investigates end‐users' image queries by comparing the features of the queries to those identified in previous studies by Enser and McGregor (1992), Jorgensen (1995), and Fidel (1997). Twenty‐nine college students majoring in art history were recruited. They were required to finish a term paper including at least 20 images. The participants' image queries were collected by pre‐ and postsearch questionnaires, and three human reviewers mapped these queries into the previously identified features. Enser and McGregor's categories of Unique and Nonunique, and Jorgensen's classes of Location, Literal Object, Art Historical Information, People, and People‐Related Attributes received high degrees of matching by three reviewers. This finding can be applied to add more details to Enser and McGregor's four categories (Unique, Nonunique, Unique with refiners, and Nonunique with refiners) and to regroup Jorgensen's 12 classes of image attributes.

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“…Previous studies also found that in finding and using primary source materials for assignments and research, users focused on format as the most important element of a resource (Archer et al., ). In this regard, providing access to the forms and genres of resources has been cataloging and indexing practice in the LIS field (Miller, ; Tibbo, ). NINES also provides genre/format as one of the required metadata elements and is, therefore, an access point.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characteristics of tagging behavior in digitized humanities online collections

Choi

Syn

2015

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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The purpose of this study was to examine user tags that describe digitized archival collections in the field of humanities. A collection of 8,310 tags from a digital portal (Nineteenth‐Century Electronic Scholarship, NINES) was analyzed to find out what attributes of primary historical resources users described with tags. Tags were categorized to identify which tags describe the content of the resource, the resource itself, and subjective aspects (e.g., usage or emotion). The study's findings revealed that over half were content‐related; tags representing opinion, usage context, or self‐reference, however, reflected only a small percentage. The study further found that terms related to genre or physical format of a resource were frequently used in describing primary archival resources. It was also learned that nontextual resources had lower numbers of content‐related tags and higher numbers of document‐related tags than textual resources and bibliographic materials; moreover, textual resources tended to have more user‐context‐related tags than other resources. These findings help explain users' tagging behavior and resource interpretation in primary resources in the humanities. Such information provided through tags helps information professionals decide to what extent indexing archival and cultural resources should be done for resource description and discovery, and understand users' terminology.

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Indexing for the humanities

Cited by 40 publications

References 29 publications

Subject Retrieval from Full-Text Databases in the Humanities

Subject Retrieval from Full-Text Databases in the Humanities

An analysis of image queries in the field of art history

Characteristics of tagging behavior in digitized humanities online collections

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