Support for browsing in an intelligent text retrieval system

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0020-7373(89)80014-8Get rights and content

Browsing is potentially an extremely important technique for retrieving text documents from large knowledge bases. The advantages of this technique are that users get immediate feedback from the structure of the knowledge base and exert complete control over the outcome of the search. The primary disadvantages are that it is easy to get lost in a complex network of nodes representing documents and concepts, and there is no guarantee that a browsing search will be as effective as a more conventional search. In this paper, we show how a browsing capability can be integrated into an intelligent text retrieval system. The disadvantages mentioned above are avoided by providing facilities for controlling the browsing and for using the information derived during browsing in more formal search strategies. The architecture of the text retrieval system is described and the browsing techniques are illustrated using an example session.

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