========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 13:14:18 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: bob wallace Subject: Re: USDA Indexing Course ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- An alternative, if you don't care to spend all that money, would be to read the relevant sections of the Chicago Manual of Style (the 14th edition has an expanded section); practice indexing brochures, a chapter from a book, or whatever; and hire an experienced indexer to give you one-on-one feedback. Just a thought. Carol Roberts, freelance copy editor and indexer rw16@cornell.edu "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug." --Mark Twain ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 13:24:58 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: David Lewis Subject: responses to query on automated aids to indexing ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I posted a query back in March to PACS-L, INDEX-L, and IR-L asking for information on automated aids to human controlled vocabulary indexing, and I realize that I never posted the responses I got, as promised. Here they are, very tardily. I was ambiguous in the phrasing of my query, and several people thought that I was only interested in "artificial intelligence" aids to indexing, which was not the case, but this influenced some of the answers below. Several people below recommended one or another version of an NFAIS report on such aids. This report is expensive ($100), but I did find it to contain many useful pointers. David D. Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories email: lewis@research.att.com 600 Mountain Ave.; Room 2C-408 ph. 908-582-3976 Murray Hill, NJ 07974; USA dept. fax. 908-582-7550 **************************************************************************** From: "Jeanne Bohlen" I am new to PACS-L but saw your message about artificial intelliegence and indexing--I remember listening to an audio-tape from an ALA annual conference presentation--probably from 1990 or 1991--I think it was on the subject of thesauri building--it may have been a LITA program. In any case the part I am sure of was the description of thesaurus software being used by National Library of Medicine--it talked about how terms were suggested to the indexer, windows being used and terms being shown in a tree form. I believe there was another presenter talking about the Art and Architecture thesaurus being developed at the Getty Museum in California. The one most closely applicable to your question, though was at NLM. I hope this is helpful. **************************************************************************** From: chute@mayo.EDU (C G Chute) Then, you should be aware of Susan Humphrey (humphrey@lhc.nlm.nih.gov) who is using a LISP based tool to create semantic frames for Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) concepts. This tool is intended to be used by journel indexing staff to assist their process. It is called MedIndex I think, and is fairly straight AI. One of her papers appeared in: BH Kwasnik, R Fidel (eds). Advances in Classification Research--Vol. II Proceedings of the 2nd ASIS SIG/CR Workshop on Classification Research. Medford, NJ: Learned Information Inc. 1992 under the title: Use and Management of Classification Systems for Knowledge-Based Indexing. I just happen to know this, because my paper is the one before hers. She probably has many better refs, and has created a 100 page techinical report, that is quite complete. [DDL: Nick Belkin also suggest Susanne Humphrey's work, as do I.] **************************************************************************** From: "Dan Clark, Music Library, JMU" The new version of INMAGIC (called INMAGIC PLUS) offers what I think you described. They offer a number of data validation features including various types of "masking" which can force such things as making sure that a social security number be in the format ###-##-#### (that's number number number hyphen number number hyphen number number number number -- I'm not sure how the symbols will appear in your message) -- this would reject anything that didn't appear in that format or anything with an alphabetical character instead of numbers. It can do the same for letters, alpha fields only, numeric fields only, etc. It also, and I think this is more germain to your question, can create verification tables for any indexed fields. These verification tables can be single word or character string (up to around 60 or 70 characters, I think) and the creator of the database can either set the validation to "required", i.e., *must* match something in the table, or "over-rideable" or some such phrase, where the databa inputter can over-ride the verification and enter something different. The database can also be set up so that certain fields *must* contain a response. INMAGIC PLUS has been available now for a few months, but because we were waiting for new micros, we did not upgrade to this new version until just a few weeks ago, so what I've listed above is pretty much all I can tell you. Their address is: Inmagic Inc 2067 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140-1338 Phone (617) 661-8124 Fax (617) 661-6901 **************************************************************************** From: "Cynthia A. Hodgson 412-337-2434" <@mrgate.al.alcoa.com:HODGSON1%A1@ALFIE> You may want to take a look at the recent publication: AUTOMATED SUPPORT TO INDEXING Gail M. Hodge 1992. 176 pp. The National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services 1429 Walnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 ISBN 0-942308-36-0 Softcover. $100.00 ($80.00 members) Over a third of the book is made up of 23 narrative case studies of database producers describing the types of automated support used in their current indexing environments. A chapter on academic and corporate research projects lists representative examples of research projects in expert systems, online reference support, natural language processing, and knowledge base development. A chapter on commercial indexing software is written by another author, Sarah Syen. It's not an excellent book - only fair, and rather costly. Might want to try to borrow it from a library. **************************************************************************** From: Jessica Milstead <76440.2356@CompuServe.COM> Have you seen my article in Information Processing & Management (28(3)407-431, 1992) which has a good bit on this subject? Gail Hodge built on this work and extended it significantly in her Automated Support to Indexing, an NFAIS report published in 1992. **************************************************************************** From: epai@CS.UCLA.EDU (edward pai) Have you seen the NFAIS report "Automated support to indexing" by Gail M. Hodge (report #3)? It reviews, in case study form, a wide variety of operational "automatic" indexing systems. : : NFAIS is the National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services, located in Phil., PA. You can call them at (215)563-2406. The cost is a whopping $100 ($80 to members). I just finished reading it, and while it really doesn't get into much detail about the techniques, etc. that systems use, it does provide pointers to the systems (i.e., to the people/places where these systems are). Also, as can be expected, some of the more interesting commercial systems (such as Topic) are not included. **************************************************************************** From: Edie Rasmussen There are a number of such systems, the ones I have seen published reports on are at NLM, NASA, and API (American Petroleum Institute). Some refs: Susanne M. Humphrey, MedIndEx System: Medical Indexing Expert System. IP&M 25(1): 73-88 (1989). Ronald L. Buchan, Computer Aided Indexing at NASA. Reference Librarian 13: 269-277 (Summer '87). E.H. Brenner et al, AMerican Petroleum Institute's Machine-Aided Indexing and Searching Project, Science & Technology Libraries 5: 49-62 (Fall '84). More currently, there is a section on computer aided indexing in a forthcoming ASIS monograph on indexing. Phil Smith (phil+@osu.edu) was coordinating that section and could probably give you more recent information. **************************************************************************** From: msc0h@fizvax.kfk.de (Michael Schwantner) Although I do not claim the AIR-System (which I think you already know) to be an artificial intelligence product, it is really an aid for indexing with controlled vocabulary: the FIZ Karlsruhe uses it for the input production of the PHYS database since 1985; about 5000 documents are indexed with AIR weekly. Actually, we plan to extend the system, so that it can be used for other bibliographic databases. For this task, we are searching partners for cooperation. I have listed some literature below; the last article will probably be the most helpful for you. I for myself am VERY interested in the (hopefully many) answers you will get! With kind regards, Michael. ----- Martinez, C.; Lucey, J.; Linder, E.: An Expert System for Machine-Aided Indexing J. of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences 27(4), 1987, pp 158-62 Klingbiel, P.H. Phrase Structure Rewrite Systems in Information Systems Inf. Proc. & Managment 21, 1985, pp 113-6 In these two approaches a dictionary is used which consists of replacement rules of the form (text-term is-to-be-replced-by descriptor). The rules are derived from a thesaurus and can be supplemented manually. Todeschini, C.; Farell, M.P. An Expert System for Quality Control in Bibliographic Databases JASIS 40(1), 1989, pp 1-11 Hamill, K.A.; Zamora, A.: The Use of Titles for Automatic Document Classification JASIS 31(6), 1980, pp 396-402 In both papers statistical relations between terms and classification codes are described. Milstead, J.L. Methodologies for Subject Analysis in Bibliographic Databases Paper and Report of meeting sponsored by International Atomic Energy Agency and Energy Technology Data Exchange, 1990, The JELEM Company, PO Box 5063, Brookfield, CT 06804 USA, 66 pp. Very good survey; lists and describes many systems and approaches. There is probably a revised version in progress... Finin, T; Silvermann,D. (1986): Interactive Classification as a Knowledge Acquisition Tool. In: Kerschberg, L. (Ed.): Proc. of 1st Int. Workshop on Expert Database Systems, pp.79-80. Benjamin/Cummings Publ. Comp. Linda C. Malone, Julie Wildman-Pepe, James R. Driscoll (1990): Evaluation of an Automated Keywording System. Microcomputers for Information Management. 7(2), June 1990, pp.127-148 Hikomaro Sano (1991): Extraction of Facet Terms from Article Titles and their Display in Tabular Form. J. of Information Science 17 (1991), pp. 43-48. Wei Li; Lee, B.; Krausz, F.; Sahin, K. (1991): Text classification by a neural network. Editor(s): Pace, D. : Proceedings of the 1991 Summer Computer Simulation Conference. Twenty-Third Annual Summer Computer Simulation Conference San Diego, CA, USA, 1991. p.313-18 System extracts relationships between input data and output classes automatically, runs on VAX. Hayes, P.J.; Andersen, P.M.; Nirenburg, I.B.; Schmandt, L.M. (1990): TCS: a shell for content-based text categorization Sixth Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications Los Alamitos, CA, USA: IEEE Comput. Soc. Press, 1990. p.320-6 commercial system, rule-based. Giere, W.; Dettmer, H. (1986): Free text classification and retrieval based on a thesaurus: eight years of experience at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University Medical School. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care. Washington, DC, USA: IEEE Comput. Soc. Press, 1986. p.85-8 autopsy reports are automatically classified using a thesaurus. Arapov, M. V. (1980): Mathematical models of classification in application to some problems of statistical linguistics. Viks, Ue. (Hrsg.): Computational linguistics and related topics. Summaries of a symposium. Reval, SU, 1980, p. 14-16 **************************************************************************** From: yang@mayo.EDU (Yiming Yang) Here are a few lines about our text categorization system. Our system is an example-based approach to automatic classification. The system "learns" an empirical mapping function, according to the likelyhood suggested in a training set, that is, a collection of texts with human assigned categories. A least squares fit (LSF) technique is used the computing such a mapping function. We use the LSF mapping function to determine the relevance scores of likely matches in a search space. This system has been evaluated with both library document retrieval and clinical classification of patient records; superior performance has been observed, compared to alternative approaches [COLING 92], [SIGIR 93]. This system is currently used in the clinical classification at the Medical Information Resources at Mayo, as automated aids for human experts in assigning disease categories to the textual descriptions in patient records. Those categories are used for indexing our clanical database. **************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 13:32:17 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "mooney,jennifer" Subject: Re: USDA Indexing Course >I have experience with the USDA Basic Indexing course. The course is >definitely worthwhile. The lessons are graded and critiqued by freelance >professional indexers with many years of experience. Included in the course >are the Chicago Manual of Style and Webster's style manual. The only negative >comment is that they are busier than ever and the turnaround on lessons can >be several weeks. You cannot really focus continuously on the material due to >these delays. Still worth it, tho'. > >Good luck, > >Larry Harrison Do you have any information about this course, such as a phone number or address? Also, any idea as to the cost? Thanks, Jennifer Mooney jenny2@cc.bellcore.com [Moderator's note: Graduate School of the USDA Correspondence Programs Room 1114, South Agriculture Building 14th St. and Inbdependence Ave SW Washington DC 20250 Tuition: 269.00 (includes all materials) ] ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 16:32:03 ECT Reply-To: Indexer's Discussion Group Sender: Indexer's Discussion Group From: "James D. Anderson." Subject: ANSI/NISO indexing standard on the internet??? ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- This is in replay to the question of 11/23/93 from Susannah Skyer, re: Is there an ftp site, etc. from which the latest ANSI/NISO indexing standard can be retrieved? Answer: The Committee has been sending out drafts via email to all who request from me at janderson@zodiac.rutgers.edu However, draft 4.1 has been officially forwarded to NISO for formal consideration by voting members. As soon as it is available from NISO, in beautifully typeset form, it will no longer be available from the committee via email. The current official draft must be obtained from: NISO Press P.O. Box 338 Oxon Hill, MD 20750-0338 tel. 800-282-NISO (1836) Outside the USA, call 1-301-768-1876 Cost: $30.00. Thanks -- Jim Anderson, Chairperson, NISO Committee to Revise Z39.4, Standards for Indexes =========================================================================