A comparison of systems for selectively disseminating information

This book presents the results of research conducted to compare the performance of four methods of selecting documents in an operating current awareness or selective dissemination system. These documents were indexed by the professional staff of a large information processing organization, using a uniterm or keyword index designed for use with a mechanized search system. Each selection method utilized a profile that characterized the interests of the user. The index of each document was compared with the user's interest profile; selection was indicated if the document met the proper criterion. The four criterion systems were: 1) selection based on conjunctive and disjunctive relationships between index terms - the widely used "Boolean" request logic, 2)selection based simply on the number of profile terms that occurred in the document index, 3)selection based on the percentage of document index terms that appeared in the profile, 4)selected based on the sum of importance weights of profile terms that occurred in thedocument index