SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION AS A TERMINOLOGY RETRIEVAL TOOL IN AN ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA

Abstract

First paragraph: There are several means to assist an information seeker in online information services e.g. in online glossaries, terminological databases, online encyclopedias, bibliographies, and link collections. A widely utilised method in free online glossaries from different subject fields is a simple search function where the information seeker types a word in a box. This kind of search, however, requires that the user knows one or more search terms to start with. Often only a single article with a term and a definition, or an equivalent in another language is shown to the user. This search method does not support browsing in cases in which the information seeker does not have an exact term in mind. In some glossaries, the word search leads the user to the wanted term entry in an alphabetical list of entries, thus showing all the term entries around it. In another type of typical online glossary, the material can be browsed by the alphabet. Sometimes the word search and the letter search are combined, see Figure 1.