Bibliographic database access using free-text and controlled vocabulary: an evaluation

This paper evaluates and compares the retrieval effectiveness of various search models, based on either automatic text-word indexing or on manually assigned controlled descriptors. Retrieval is from a relatively large collection of bibliographic material written in French. Moreover, for this French collection we evaluate improvements that result from combining automatic and manual indexing. First, when considering various contexts, this study reveals that the combined indexing strategy always obtains the best retrieval performance. Second, when users wish to conduct exhaustive searches with minimal effort, we demonstrate that manually assigned terms are essential. Third, the evaluations presented in this paper study reveal the comparative retrieval performances that result from manual and automatic indexing in a variety of circumstances. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.