Page 79 - DLIS405_INFORMATION_STORAGE_AND_RETRIEVAL

Information Storage and Retrieval

Notes Another example is that the same book may be indexed differently for library for gender studies
compared to a library of historical studies. Still, the indexing has to be loyal to the document being
indexed, but different aspects of the document may be emphasized and the subject may be expressed
in different controlled vocabularies constructed to support either collection.
The importance of indexing documents specific to a specific discipline, task or point of view may be
illustrated by an example from the Royal Library in Copenhagen. First, the practice in this library is
that a given book is circulated to different subject bibliographers. Each subject bibliographer then
make a decision whether the book is relevant to his or her discipline or not. If it is relevant it is then
indexed within that discipline. In this way a given document may be indexed from multiple points
of view in the same catalogue.

Nynne Koch, began about 1972 to collect printed catalogue cards which she
regarded important to a new field, which she defined and termed “feminology”.

This initiative later developed and became an important independent library and research center
“KVINFO”. The important point in relation to indexing theory is that this new library was not
started by a special collection of books, but by a new way of indexing books belonging to other
disciplines. This example demonstrates the importance of the subjectivity of indexing: to regard the
indexing in relation to the aim of the indexing system.
Indexing should not, of course, aim at an idiosyncratic understanding of the individual indexer. It
is not his or her special interests or points of view, which should be emphasized. An indexer work
in order to accomplish a goal which is implicit or explicit in a given library or information system.
It is this goal, not the individual indexers goal which should form the basis for the indexing. This
insight has led to an ideal of inter-indexer consistency. However, as pointed out by Cooper (1969),
indexing may be consistently wrong, why studies of inter-indexer consistency may not necessarily
provide a basis for indexing quality.
Discussions on abstracting cover such concepts as the different types of abstracts, purpose of an
abstract, structured versus narrative abstracts, informative versus indicative abstracts, subject
slanting, modular abstracts, and writing and evaluating an abstract.
Various styles of indexing used in printed publications such as Index Medicus, the Engineering
Index, and Chemical Abstracts are illustrated in the text; although the author is quick to note that
printed tools are used much less today in favor of their online counterparts. In the online world,
indexing has even greater importance in the effort to retrieve relevant data efficiently. Related
concepts such as weighted indexing, linking of terms, and relational indicators are discussed as
aids to precision.
The idiosyncrasies of indexing special formats such as images and sounds and the Internet, as well
as the use of computer-generated or automated indexing and abstracting, are also reviewed. The
author admits that the Web has become so large and complex that it is beyond the scope of any
single book to explain all of its components. He suggests the use of Web-based services such as The
Extreme Web Searcher’s Internet Handbook News and Updates to keep current with new
developments.
Lancaster quotes several authors who see indexing of the Web becoming more impossible with
time, but, at the same time, see that the need for automatic abstracts or summarizations continuing
to grow in importance. With automation, the need for human intervention at the local level, be it
Website design or local resources management, will also increase.

Lancaster work is primarily a teaching textbook that gives a good overview of the
historic theory and principles behind indexing and abstracting and then discusses
various applications, practices, and issues related to content analysis.

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