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The effect of textual aesthetics on information retrieval

  • Part III: EP'98
  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Electronic Publishing, Artistic Imaging, and Digital Typography (RIDT 1998)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1375))

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Abstract

Examines the effects of orthography on information retrieval (IR). IR systems use white-space normalization to produce graphic, or orthographic words, from text. The punctuation in graphic words is treated idiosyncratically by different database vendor systems. This two-step process produces the index terms that IR users must match when formulating IR queries. The argument advanced by this essay is that these index terms are often unpredictable and therefore difficult to match. In this manner textual aesthetics impedes IR. The textual aesthetics of the space, the hyphen, the apostrophe stopwords are discussed. Examples are given for the commercial database vendor systems of DIALOG, DataStar and OCLC EPIC. Implications are drawn for the manipulation of written language on the World Wide Web.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Washington, Box 352930, 98195-2930, Seattle, Washington

    Terrence A. Brooks

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  1. Terrence A. Brooks
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Roger D. Hersch Jacques André Heather Brown

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© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Brooks, T.A. (1998). The effect of textual aesthetics on information retrieval. In: Hersch, R.D., André, J., Brown, H. (eds) Electronic Publishing, Artistic Imaging, and Digital Typography. RIDT 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1375. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053291

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053291

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-64298-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69718-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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