[Sigia-l] precoordinate indexing

[ejacob at indiana.edu]

On Dec 1, 2004, at 11:03 AM, Peter Van Dijck wrote:

Question: I'm trying to figure out what "precoordinate indexing" really 
means, in a web context.
	http://www.archivists.org/glossary/term_details.asp?DefinitionKey=993

Let's say we have an article about Shakespeare's lovelife. In 
precoordinate indexing, we have to put that under the categories:
- Shakespeare
- Skakespeare's lovelife
- lovelife
whereas in postcoordinate indexing, we have to put it under the 
categories
- Shakespeare
- lovelife
and the system will also show it under Shakespeare's lovelife.

Something like that. In precoordinate, you have to list out all the 
combinations, in post-coordinate, you let the system/user generate 
combinations. Is that correct? And if so, is it correct to say that 
these concepts are useful in a manual environment, but when you're 
dealing with databases and such, the concept of precoordinate indexing 
becomes pretty much irrelevant?


Peter --

Yahoo! is a precoordinate system.  so is Open Directory.  you may be 
able to search both using a postcoordinate search query to identify 
resources but the underlying structure is precoordinate (predefined 
categories in a fixed relational styructure).  postcoordinate searching 
simply splits a resource collection in two: those that match the query 
and those that don't match the query -- no more, no less.  but a 
precoordinate system that supports postcoordinate searching would allow 
you to access not only those resources that explicitly match your 
[free-text] query string, but those that have been previously assigned 
to the same precoordinate category (or categories) as your retrieval 
set but that didn't actually contaIn the terms you used in your query.

so is the distinction irrelevant for web-based resource collections?  i 
think not.  each approach has advantages in a digital environment.

elin jacob