Page 238 - DLIS402_INFORMATION_ANALYSIS_AND_REPACKAGING

Unit 11: Indexing Language: Types and Characteristics

Moving Animals and Complex Locators Notes
Maps of the paper sort showing geography don’t usually show animals on them, though they could.
Animals move. Hunters (human and probably wolves and other highly intelligent predators, and
perhaps some herbivores as well) include their knowledge of the animals they hunt in their mental
maps.
Human language can be dissected into words that identify things (including abstract things, such
as actions, using verbs) and the relationships between things. Maps that keep track of numerous
types of things that move around and otherwise change their relationships require a fluidity that
paper is limited in displaying. The human mind is highly adapted to this type of mapping. Humans
can talk about their world with little effort. That talk can be written down.

Indexing Books: Complex Targets with Simple Locators
Many of the roadblocks to using machines (MIs) to produce high-quality book indexes correspond
to information structures analogous to some of our mapping examples.
Knowing that elk wander around certain hills in summer and certain valleys in winter might be
indicated by oral communication or in a hunting guidebook, hunting and gathering being basic
human abilities. The book might be indexed for elk locations with
elk
Summer locations, 37
Winter locations, 38
This is not so different than indexing a technology book to help a programmer find the section for
TCP/IP sockets for a particular language:
sockets
C++ library classes, 97
Java library classes, 103
Now suppose a book has a short section on Java library socket classes in which a function LoadBufferX
is mentioned. In a later section of the book say page 132, without reminding the reader that
LoadBufferX is a Java socket class, the function is again discussed. A good indexer (human or MI)
include this island of information as a subentry under sockets:
sockets
C++ library classes, 97
Java library classes, 103
LoadBufferX, 103, 132
This is not unlike a map of elk locations in winter, which would be remiss if it did not show a pocket
of elk that regularly overwintered in an area separated from the main range.
For humans, this mapping/indexing process is intuitive because it is an integrated survival skill.
For MIs a system must be created that correlates to it.

Machine Indexing Requirements List

Based on the above discussions, a machine indexer must have an appropriate knowledge base and
an appropriate set of functions in order to produce quality indexes.
The function requirements are:
Ranging intelligently, given a good knowledge base.
Repetition and novelty discrimination

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