Thesaurus-enhanced search interfaces

Abstract

User interfaces to information retrieval systems play a major role in assisting users to search, browse and retrieve information relevant to their needs. This paper provides a review of a category of information retrieval interfaces that are enhanced by incorporating standard thesauri as part of their searching and browsing facilities. A brief account of the rationale behind the integration of thesauri as search aids in such interfaces is provided, based on research literature related to information searching behaviour, information retrieval interface evaluation, search term selection and query expansion. Two categories of search interfaces enhanced with thesauri are examined: those associated with research-based programmes and commercial webbased interfaces to bibliographic databases. Six commercial web-based databases are compared in terms of their thesaurus interface features. It is concluded that, although the number of thesaurus-enhanced interfaces is growing, few studies have focused on user interaction with these interfaces or fully explored the ways in which they can assist users in the search process. 50 1 2

Evaluating hierarchical organisation structures for exploring digital libraries

“…Hierarchies have been used to support the user in a number of information retrieval tasks, including complex search tasks (Singer et al 2012), collection browsing (Milne et al 2007;Shiri et al 2002), and hierarchical search facets (Hearst 2006a;Stoica et al 2007). In this paper we focus on four key activities that hierarchies support:…”

“…This is particularly relevant to digital libraries where rich user/information interaction is common and requires alternative methods to support users (Rao et al 1995). The provision of browsing functionalities through thesaurus-based search enhancements (Milne et al 2007;Shiri et al 2002), document clustering (Pirolli et al 1996) or the use of concepts arranged hierarchically in facets (Hearst 2006a;Stoica et al 2007) have all been shown to improve the search experience.…”

Multilingual query expansion in the SveMed+ bibliographic database: A case study

“…For instance, the terms entered by the user may be mapped to terms in the thesaurus [32][33][34][35][36]. Some approaches, such as the Automatic Term Mapping (ATM) feature in PubMed, rely on performing the mapping step behind the scenes [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44].…”

Exploring Large Digital Library Collections Using a Map-Based Visualisation

“…For example, when users do not have clearly defined information needs [36]; when users have complex search tasks [33]; or when they want to gain an overview over a collection [15]. This has led to the design of browsing and exploration functionalities, including thesaurus-based search improvements [23,31], document clustering [27] or the use of concepts arranged hierarchically in facets [12,34]. All approaches have been shown to improve the user's search experience for exploration activities.…”