Retrieval effectiveness of table of contents and subject headings

Youngok Choi, Ingrid Hsieh-Yee, Bill Kules

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

The effectiveness of two modes of subject representation - table of contents (TOC) and subject headings - in subject searching in an online public access catalog (OPAC) system was investigated. The retrieval difference between TOC and the Library of Congress subject headings (LCSH) was statistically significant; the effect of subject domain was not statistically significant; users had better success matching their keywords to TOC than to LCSH; but their keywords often failed to retrieve items similar to the target items. These findings underscore the need to bridge user keywords to both TOC and LCSH.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 7th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, JCDL 2007
Subtitle of host publicationBuilding and Sustaining the Digital Environment
Pages103-104
Number of pages2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2007
Event7th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, JCDL 2007: Building and Sustaining the Digital Environment - Vancouver, BC, Canada
Duration: Jun 18 2007Jun 23 2007

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM International Conference on Digital Libraries

Conference

Conference7th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, JCDL 2007: Building and Sustaining the Digital Environment
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityVancouver, BC
Period6/18/076/23/07

Keywords

  • Controlled vocabulary
  • Online public access catalogs (OPACs)
  • Subject enhancement
  • Subject searching
  • Table of contents

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Library and Information Sciences

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