[Sigia-l] Is there research on the value of indexes, controlled vocabularies etc.

[R J Hartley]

Liz Augustine asks "Is there research on the value of indexes, 
controlled vocabularies, etc?"
There is about 40 years worth of research in this area in the 
information retrieval literature. However it might be most useful to 
follow up the work undertaken by Steve Pollitt (A.S. Pollitt) on the 
incorporation of various controlled vocabularies into front ends to 
bibliographic databases undertaken between approx 1985 and 1995.
Systems to look out for in the literature are MenUSE and HiBrowse.
Hope this helps.
Dick Hartley,
Head, Department of Information and Communications,
Manchester Metropolitan University,
Rosamund Street West,
Manchester
M15 6LL
phone: +44 161 247 6139
fax:   +44 161 247 6351
email: r.j.hartley at mmu.ac.uk