Services of full-text searching in a distributed information environment (project Humanitariana)

An important question in information retrieval is how to create a database index which can be searched efficiently for the data one seeks. Today, one or more of the following four techniques have been frequently used: full text searching, B-trees, inversion, and the signature file. Full text searching imposes no space overhead but requires long response time. In contrast, B-trees, inversion, and the signature file work quickl, but need a large intermediary representation structure (index), which provides direct links to relevant data. In this paper, we concentrate on the techniques of signature files and discuss different construction approaches of a signature file.

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Measuring the Extent of the Synonym Problem in Full-Text Searching

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice ◽

10.18438/b8mc85 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 3 (4) ◽

pp. 18 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jeffrey Beall ◽

Karen Kafadar

Keyword(s):

Web Sites ◽

Full Text ◽

The Other ◽

Web Pages ◽

Retrieval Systems ◽

Common Term ◽

Information Retrieval Systems ◽

Search Field ◽

Text Searching ◽

Very High

Objective – This article measures the extent of the synonym problem in full-text searching. The synonym problem occurs when a search misses documents because the search was based on a synonym and not on a more familiar term. Methods – We considered a sample of 90 single word synonym pairs and searched for each word in the pair, both singly and jointly, in the Yahoo! database. We determined the number of web sites that were missed when only one but not the other term was included in the search field. Results – Depending upon how common the usage is of the synonym, the percentage of missed web sites can vary from almost 0% to almost 100%. When the search uses a very uncommon synonym ("diaconate"), a very high percentage of web pages can be missed (95%), versus the search using the more common term (only 9% are missed when searching web pages for the term "deacons"). If both terms in a word pair were nearly equal in usage ("cooks" and "chefs"), then a search on one term but not the other missed almost half the relevant web pages. Conclusion – Our results indicate great value for search engines to incorporate automatic synonym searching not only for user-specified terms but also for high usage synonyms. Moreover, the results demonstrate the value of information retrieval systems that use controlled vocabularies and cross references to generate search results.

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Designing web-scale discovery systems using the VuFind open source software

Library Hi Tech News ◽

10.1108/lhtn-12-2017-0088 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 16-22 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bijan Kumar Roy ◽

Subal Chandra Biswas ◽

Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Full Text ◽

Resource Discovery ◽

Content Type ◽

Discovery System ◽

Proposed Model ◽

One Stop ◽

External Sources ◽

Text Searching ◽

Software Standards

Purpose This paper aims to provide an overview of the emergence of resource discovery systems and services along with their advantages and best practices including current landscapes. It reports the development of a resource discovery system by using the “VuFind” software and describes other technological tools, software, standards and protocols required for the development of the prototype. Design/methodology/approach This paper describes the process of integrating VuFind (resource discovery tool) with Koha (integrated library system), DSpace (repository software) and Apache Tika (as full-text extractor for full-text searching), etc. Findings The proposed model performs like other existing commercial and open source Web-scale resource discovery systems and is capable of harvesting resources from different subscribed or external sources replacing a library’s OPAC. Originality/value This discovery system is an important add-on to designing a one-stop access in place of the existing retrieval silos in libraries. This system is capable of indexing a variety of content within and beyond library collections. This work may help library professionals and administrators in designing their discovery system, as well as vendors to improve their products, to provide different library-friendly services.

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