Page 131 - DLIS402_INFORMATION_ANALYSIS_AND_REPACKAGING

Information Analysis and Repackaging

Notes There has also been a realisation that a deliberately stated query (which can be distinguished from
an information need or assertion of relevance) may be a methodological requirement for controlled
experiment, but is not intrinsic to the information seeking situation and that it is possible to search
without verbalising an information need.
The classic information retrieval paradigm, and the concepts and measures associated with it, could
be preserved but only at the cost of increasing its distance from more realistic information seeking
situations. It may be that not only are the classical concepts and measures both becoming and being
recognised as increasingly artificial but that the founding assumption-that a system should deliver
all (and only all) the relevant records should be re-examined. What is required, then, is not
questioning of concepts with the paradigm but of its founding assumption, turning what has been
received as a given into an object of enquiry.
To some extent, this has begun to occur within information retrieval research. The subtlety and
complexity of information retrieval has been recognised, Swanson 1988. Most specifically, the
principle of exploratory capability, the ability to explore and make discriminations between
representations of objects, has been suggested as the fundamental design principle for information
retrieval systems, Ellis 1984; 1996.
On a subjective level, this can be supported by introspection: that what I desire from information
retrieval systems is not a possibly mysterious transformation of a query into a set of records, but a
means of enlarging my capacity for informed choice between the representations of objects within
the given universe of discourse. Such an enhanced capacity for informed choice broadly corresponds
to exploratory capability. It could also be regarded as analogous to a sense of cognitive control over,
or ability to discriminate between, representations of objects.
One example (which may be fictional in a double sense) can be given of the need for enhanced
discriminatory power. At one point in time, a researcher might wish to distinguish the private
individual, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, from the author, Mark Twain, (perhaps out of interest in
his copyright disputes or in his brother’s, Orion Clemens, activities as Secretary to Nevada Territory).
What would be valuable for this purpose would be a system which did not conflate these two
distinguishable aspects of the individual but enabled them to be differentiated. At a later point in
time, the same researcher might be interested in information on Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens
considered as single entity. An information retrieval system should then be able to differentiate and
to link together the occurrences of these different names, as required.
In conclusion, the assumption that it is desirable to obtain all, and possibly only all, the records
relevant to a given query can be rejected in favour of the alternative principle of exploratory capability
or enhanced capacity for informed choice. Introspection supported the value of exploratory
capability. Its appeal as an alternative to the established information retrieval paradigm could be
strengthened if it could be found, even if only implicitly or in analogous forms, in other,
independently developed, discourses.

Principle of Indexing and Classification

An acknowledged principle of indexing and classification is that the value of a term is its
discriminatory power. By discriminatory power is understood the ability to partition and select
from the objects represented within the given universe of discourse. What particular terms or methods
of classification are appropriate will vary with the area of discourse and the focus of interest: most
obviously, a factor which differentiates one set of objects from another will not serve to discriminate
within either set of objects. Discriminatory power is again analogous to exploratory capability, or,
more accurately, a critical factor in enabling progressive and controlled exploration.

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