The culture of lay indexing has been created by the aggregation strategy employed by Web search engines such as Google. Meaning is constructed in this culture by harvesting semantic content from Web pages and using hyperlinks as a plebiscite for the most important Web pages. The characteristic tension of the culture of lay indexing is between genuine information and spam. Google's success requires maintaining the secrecy of its parsing algorithm despite the efforts of Web authors to gain advantage over the Googlebot. Legacy methods of asserting meaning such as the META keywords tag and Dublin Core are inappropriate in the lawless meaning space of the open Web. A writing guide is urged as a necessary aid for Web authors who must balance enhancing expression versus the use of technologies that limit the aggregation of their work.

Topical metadata have been used to indicate the subject of Web pages. They have been simultaneously hailed as building blocks of the semantic Web and derogated as spam. At this time major Web browsers avoid harvesting topical metadata. This paper suggests that the significance of the topical metadata controversy depends on the technological appropriateness of adding them to Web pages. This paper surveys Web technology with an eye on assessing the appropriateness of Web pages as hosts for topical metadata. The survey reveals Web pages to be both transient and volatile: poor hosts of topical metadata. The closed Web is considered to be a more supportive environment for the use of topical metadata. The closed Web is built on communities of trust where the structure and meaning of Web pages can be anticipated. The vast majority of Web pages, however, exist in the open Web, an environment that challenges the application of legacy information retrieval concepts and methods.

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and TechnologyVolume 52, Issue 1 p. 1-2 Editorial Still the frontier: Information science at the Millennium Terrence A. Brooks, Terrence A. Brooks tabrooks@u.washington.edu The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Search for more papers by this author Terrence A. Brooks, Terrence A. Brooks tabrooks@u.washington.edu The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Search for more papers by this author First published: 08 November 2000 https://doi.org/10.1002/1532-2890(2000)52:1<1::AID-ASI1054>3.0.CO;2-KRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume52, Issue12001Pages 1-2 RelatedInformation

A citation analysis examined the 28 best articles published in JASIS (Journal of the American Society for Information Science) from 1969–1996. Best articles tend to be single-authored works twice as long as the average article published in JASIS. They are cited and self-cited much more often than the average article. The greatest source of references made to the best articles is from JASIS itself. The top five best papers focus largely on information retrieval and online searching.

For 50 years JASIS has reflected the modern information era when scholars sought tenure by publishing in paper journals, and universities paid twice for scholarly products (once as academic salaries, and again as subscriptions to academic serials). The Internet has placed JASIS in the cross hairs of tumultuous technical and social change. In the twenty-first century, scholars will, I predict, abandon print in favor of more immediate and multidimensional venues. In the postmodern information era, scholars will be publishers, academic review will be instantaneous with publication, and universities will seek to maximize their assets and vend a product. We may be witnessing the last days of the paper-based scholarly journal. This essay suggests that JASISWeb should become the more appropriate postmodern information science “journal.”

This paper presents the Semantic Distance Model of Relevance Assessment. It is a cognitive model of the relationship between semantic distance and relevance assessment. Premises of the model such as the subjective nature of information and the metaphor of semantic distance are discussed. Empirical results illustrate the effects of semantic distance and semantic direction. Relevance auras, a combination of vertical and horizontal relevance assessments are also presented.An ongoing series of experiments (Brooks, 1995a, 1995b, 1997) has investigated the relationship between semantic distance and relevance assessments. This essay cumulates these results and adds some new experimental results in presenting the Semantic Distance Model (SDM) of Relevance Assessment. The SDM is a cognitive model describing the relevance relationships between bibliographic database records and topical subject descriptors.The SDM proposes that relevance assessment systematically declines with semantic distance. Such a decline of stimuli effect as a factor of distance in psychological space is typical of many cognitive models (Shepard, 1987). The SDM provides empirical support for the general indexing/cataloging notion that subject-term hierarchies express a conceptual arrangement from broad to narrow. The SDM also provides empirical support for the notion that the "appropriate" subject descriptor will be perceived as more relevant than those at greater semantic distance. A semantically distant descriptor might be one that resides at either a broader or narrower position in the same subject-term hierarchy.A number of unanticipated findings have also been observed: (1) It appears that the SDM can be switched off and on depending on the context of relevance assessment, (2) It appears that topical subject expertise steepens the rate of decline of relevance assessment, and (3) It appears that relevance assessment is contingent on semantic direction; that is, the rate of decline differs if one is assessing a series of increasingly narrow descriptors, or increasingly broad descriptors.The archetype trial of the experiments supporting the SDM has been the comparison of two texts. One text has been bibliographic records trimmed to title and abstract, while the other text has been topical subject descriptors. Relevant assessments were harvested from library science, economics, engineering and mathematics graduate students as they assessed the relevance relationship between subject descriptors and trimmed bibliographic records from the literatures of education, economics, engineering and mathematics.

Orthography is the linguistic study of written language: Elements of text such as letters, punctuation marks, and spelling. Information retrieval systems operate in the orthographic realm matching some text strings (i.e., index entries) from documents with other text strings (i.e., query terms) from patrons. During the early history of information retrieval, it has been convenient to assume the rationality and uniformity of orthography in order to concentrate effort building information retrieval systems. Fundamental orthographic problems have persisted into modern information retrieval systems, however, where white-space normalization and the arbitrary treatment of punctuation have exacerbated the orthographic impediment to information retrieval.

Journal of the American Society for Information ScienceVolume 49, Issue 7 p. 671-672 Book Review Knowledge, concepts, and categories Terrence A. Brooks, Corresponding Author Terrence A. Brooks tabrooks@u.washington.edu Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Search for more papers by this author Terrence A. Brooks, Corresponding Author Terrence A. Brooks tabrooks@u.washington.edu Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Search for more papers by this author First published: 06 January 1999 https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(19980515)49:7<671::AID-ASI10>3.0.CO;2-HAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue7Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Emerging Information Systems Applications15 May 1998Pages 671-672 RelatedInformation

Relevance assessments of topical descriptors for bibliographic records were gathered for two dimensions: a vertical conceptual hierarchy of broad to narrow descriptors, and a horizontal linkage of related-terms spanning three descriptors. The data were analyzed for a semantic distance and semantic direction effect as postulated by the Semantic Distance Model (SDM). The vertical conceptual hierarchy exhibited a strong SDM effect. The horizontal linkages of related terms exhibited an attenuated semantic distance effect. Results showed that the horizontal semantic distance to nonrelevance is greater for semantically narrow records than for semantically broad records. This difference was explained by introducing the construct of the stride length of conceptual semantic steps. Horizontal semantic steps at the bottom of conceptual hierarchies are postulated to have smaller and more uniform stride lengths than horizontal semantic steps at the top of the conceptual hierarchies. Relevance assessments in both dimensions were combined to visualize the relevance aura of bibliographic records. The aura for semantically narrow bibliographic records was found to be larger than the aura for semantically broad records.

Journal of the American Society for Information ScienceVolume 47, Issue 9 p. 719-720A Book Review Designing information technology in the postmodern age: From method to metaphor Terrence A. Brooks, Corresponding Author Terrence A. Brooks Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Box 352930, University of WashingtonGraduate School of Library and Information Science, Box 352930, University of WashingtonSearch for more papers by this author Terrence A. Brooks, Corresponding Author Terrence A. Brooks Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Box 352930, University of WashingtonGraduate School of Library and Information Science, Box 352930, University of WashingtonSearch for more papers by this author First published: September 1996 https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199609)47:9<719::AID-ASI10>3.0.CO;2-OAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat References Weber, B. (1996. February 18). Computer's ability against chess champion has surprised and intrigued. The New York Timer (National Edition), p. 17. Vaughan, D. (1996). The Challenger launch decision: Risky technology, culture and deviance at NASA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Volume47, Issue9Special Issue: Electronic PublishingSeptember 1996Pages 719-720A ReferencesRelatedInformation

The literature on acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) offers unique opportunities for bibliographic analysis, This study presents and analyzes data from the 1992 AIDSLINE database, The analysis compares these 1992 data with data from the 1989 AIDSLINE on two dimensions: The shifts in productivity of various journals that contributed to the literature; and the changing frequencies with which various Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms were used to provide subject access and control, The greatest increase in productivity came from the group of specialty journals in immunity, viral disease, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This increase has significance for collection management, Secondly, although a stable set of indexing terms persisted, new and newly prominent subject headings reflected changes in the knowledge base (e.g., the addition of the subsets of HIV) and the direction of research effort (e.g., toward transmission in the general population), The changes indicate that the knowledge base is less chaotic, but that it is still continuing its rapid alteration and development. The findings have implications for database searching, including the choice of database.

Journal of the American Society for Information ScienceVolume 46, Issue 9 p. 713-714 Book Review Information retrieval: New systems and current research. Proceedings of the 15th research colloquium of the British Computer Society Information Retrieval Specialist Group Terrence A. Brooks, Corresponding Author Terrence A. Brooks [email protected] Graduate School of Library and Information Science, FM-30 University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Graduate School of Library and Information Science, FM-30 University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Search for more papers by this author Terrence A. Brooks, Corresponding Author Terrence A. Brooks [email protected] Graduate School of Library and Information Science, FM-30 University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Graduate School of Library and Information Science, FM-30 University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195Search for more papers by this author First published: October 1995 https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199510)46:9<713::AID-ASI14>3.0.CO;2-NCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL References Brooks, T. A. (1993). All the right descriptors: A test of the strategy of unlimited aliasing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science. 44, 131– 147. Chalmers, M. (1993). Ongoing work on Bead, an information visualiser in R. Leon (Ed.), Information retrieval: New systems and current research (pp. 53– 66). London: Taylor Graham. Gomez, L. M., Lochbaum, C. C., and Landauer, T. K. (1990). All the right words: Finding what you want as a function of richness of indexing vocabulary. Journal of the American Society for Information Science. 41, 547– 559. Citing Literature Volume46, Issue9October 1995Pages 713-714 ReferencesRelatedInformation

This paper reports two experiments that investigated the semantic distance model (SDM) of relevance assessment. In the first experiment graduate students of mathematics and economics assessed the relevance relationships between bibliographic records and hierarchies of terms composed of classification headings or help‐menu terms. The relevance assessments of the classification headings, but not the help‐menu terms, exhibited both a semantic distance effect and a semantic direction effect as predicted by the sdm. Topical subject expertise enhanced both these effects. The second experiment investigated whether the poor performance of the help‐menu terms was an experimental design artifact reflecting the comparison of terse help terms with verbose classification headings. In the second experiment the help‐menu terms were compared to a hierarchy of single‐word terms where they exhibited both a semantic distance and semantic direction effect.

Two experiments investigated how textual factors influence the perception of bibliographical records. Subjects in the first experiment browsed indexes for the subject descriptor associated with the displayed record. Results showed that topical and broader descriptors are matched to records more easily than narrower descriptors. In the second experiment, subjects ranked the relevance of descriptors for a bibliographic record. The interaction of three textual factors are reported: (a) semantic distance; (b) direction up or down a generic tree of descriptors; and (c) term overlap. Both experiments found that relevance perceptions degraded systematically with semantic distance, but the rate of degradation was different for top and bottom records. Term overlap modified these effects. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.