Special Libraries, July 1978

Volume 69, Issue 7https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1978/1005/thumbnail.jp

Special Libraries, February 1962

Volume 53, Issue 2https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1962/1001/thumbnail.jp

Special Libraries, May-June 1977

Volume 68, Issue 5-6https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1977/1004/thumbnail.jp

Special Libraries, December 1966

Volume 57, Issue 10https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1966/1009/thumbnail.jp

The NASA Astrophysics Data System: The Search Engine and its User Interface

The ADS Abstract and Article Services provide access to the astronomical literature through the World Wide Web (WWW). The forms based user interface provides access to sophisticated searching capabilities that allow our users to find references in the fields of Astronomy, Physics/Geophysics, and astronomical Instrumentation and Engineering. The returned information includes links to other on-line information sources, creating an extensive astronomical digital library. Other interfaces to the ADS databases provide direct access to the ADS data to allow developers of other data systems to integrate our data into their system. The search engine is a custom-built software system that is specifically tailored to search astronomical references. It includes an extensive synonym list that contains discipline specific knowledge about search term equivalences. Search request logs show the usage pattern of the various search system capabilities. Access logs show the world-wide distribution of ADS users. The ADS can be accessed at http://adswww.harvard.eduComment: 23 pages, 18 figures, 11 table

Special Libraries, December 1964

Volume 55, Issue 10https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1964/1009/thumbnail.jp

Finding qualitative research: an evaluation of search strategies

BACKGROUND: Qualitative research makes an important contribution to our understanding of health and healthcare. However, qualitative evidence can be difficult to search for and identify, and the effectiveness of different types of search strategies is unknown. METHODS: Three search strategies for qualitative research in the example area of support for breast-feeding were evaluated using six electronic bibliographic databases. The strategies were based on using thesaurus terms, free-text terms and broad-based terms. These strategies were combined with recognised search terms for support for breast-feeding previously used in a Cochrane review. For each strategy, we evaluated the recall (potentially relevant records found) and precision (actually relevant records found). RESULTS: A total yield of 7420 potentially relevant records was retrieved by the three strategies combined. Of these, 262 were judged relevant. Using one strategy alone would miss relevant records. The broad-based strategy had the highest recall and the thesaurus strategy the highest precision. Precision was generally poor: 96% of records initially identified as potentially relevant were deemed irrelevant. Searching for qualitative research involves trade-offs between recall and precision. CONCLUSIONS: These findings confirm that strategies that attempt to maximise the number of potentially relevant records found are likely to result in a large number of false positives. The findings also suggest that a range of search terms is required to optimise searching for qualitative evidence. This underlines the problems of current methods for indexing qualitative research in bibliographic databases and indicates where improvements need to be made

Special Libraries, December 1975

Volume 66, Issue 12https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1975/1009/thumbnail.jp

Special Libraries, December 1964

Volume 55, Issue 10https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1964/1009/thumbnail.jp

Special Libraries, December 1977

Volume 68, Issue 12https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1977/1008/thumbnail.jp