An online associative query modification methodology

An online system of associative information retrieval is described. The system uses a network representation of the information in a bibliographic database and a processing paradigm modeling a continuing flow of user interest through the network to implement associative retrieval and query modification. The system is capable of relevance feedback, thesaurus and statistical query expansion, Boolean and best‐match searching, and retention of associations based on previous search experience. The query modification capability stems from the ability to incorporate thesaurus or dictionary linkages between terms and preferred or alternative forms and to generate associations between sets of documents and the vocabulary they contain. The former capability allows the automatic incorporation in a query of pre‐defined equivalent or alternate terms. The use of terms associated with retrieved documents allows automatic discovery and inclusion of related vocabulary, index terms, and subject categories and may improve the effectiveness of free text searching in databases incorporating controlled vocabulary indexing and subject classification schemes. A pilot version of the system has been implemented on the DECsystem‐10 and tested on small scale files;illustrative sample searches are presented.