Optimal document-indexing vocabulary for MEDLINE Export

@article{citeulike:302184, abstract = {The indexing vocabulary is an important determinant of success in text retrieval. Researchers have compared the effectiveness of indexing using free-text and controlled vocabularies in a variety of text contexts. A number of studies have investigated the relative merits of free-text, MeSH and UMLS Metathesaurus indexing vocabularies for MEDLINE document indexing. Most of these studies conclude that controlled vocabularies offer no advantages in retrieval performance over free-text. This paper offers a detailed analysis of prior results and their underlying experimental designs. The analysis indicates that there are a number of open questions relevant to the overall debate on indexing vocabularies for MEDLINE. This paper also offers results from a new experiment assessing eight different retrieval strategies. These strategies involve document indexing via free-text, MeSH and several alternative combinations of the two vocabularies. The results indicate that MeSH does have an important role in text retrieval.}, author = {Srinivasan, Padmini}, citeulike-article-id = {302184}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0306-4573(96)00025-8}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VC8-3VV40T8-1/2/6f80ee2391dc57dada2bfd11e8c0c53f}, doi = {10.1016/0306-4573(96)00025-8}, journal = {Information Processing \& Management}, keywords = {controlled-vocabulary, free-text-searching, medline}, month = {September}, number = {5}, pages = {503--514}, posted-at = {2005-08-24 13:14:00}, priority = {2}, title = {Optimal document-indexing vocabulary for MEDLINE}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0306-4573(96)00025-8}, volume = {32}, year = {1996} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:302184 L3 - citeulike-article-id:302184 N2 - The indexing vocabulary is an important determinant of success in text retrieval. Researchers have compared the effectiveness of indexing using free-text and controlled vocabularies in a variety of text contexts. A number of studies have investigated the relative merits of free-text, MeSH and UMLS Metathesaurus indexing vocabularies for MEDLINE document indexing. Most of these studies conclude that controlled vocabularies offer no advantages in retrieval performance over free-text. This paper offers a detailed analysis of prior results and their underlying experimental designs. The analysis indicates that there are a number of open questions relevant to the overall debate on indexing vocabularies for MEDLINE. This paper also offers results from a new experiment assessing eight different retrieval strategies. These strategies involve document indexing via free-text, MeSH and several alternative combinations of the two vocabularies. The results indicate that MeSH does have an important role in text retrieval. IS - 5 JF - Information Processing & Management EP - 514 TI - Optimal document-indexing vocabulary for MEDLINE VL - 32 SP - 503 KW - controlled-vocabulary KW - free-text-searching KW - medline AU - Srinivasan, Padmini PY - 1996/09// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0306-4573(96)00025-8 ER -