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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 1103–1109Cite as

Faceted Search

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Synonyms

Dynamic taxonomies; Faceted browsing; Hierarchical faceted metadata

Definition

The term facetmeans “little face” and is often used to describe one side of a many-sided object, especially a cut gemstone. In the context of information science, where the item being described is an information object, facets could refer to the object’s author, date, topic, etc. Facets are used to describe both the organization of information (faceted classification), and to interface techniques that provide flexible access to that information (faceted search). The motivation for faceted classification and search is that any single organizational structure is too limiting to accommodate access to complex domains. Multiple independent facets provide alternative ways of getting to the same information, thus supporting a wider range of end-user tasks and knowledge. The fields of faceted classification, information architecture, and data modeling provide theory and methods for identifying and...

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Recommended Reading

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA

    Susan Dumais

Authors
  1. Susan Dumais
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 266 Ferst Drive, 30332-0765, Atlanta, GA, USA

    LING LIU (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Database Research Group David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. TAMER ÖZSU (Professor and Director, University Research Chair) (Professor and Director, University Research Chair)

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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Dumais, S. (2009). Faceted Search. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_159

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