Journal of Documentation 

About: Journal of Documentation is an academic journal published by Emerald Publishing Limited. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Information science & Information system. It has an ISSN identifier of 0022-0418. Over the lifetime, 2347 publications have been published receiving 83989 citations.

A statistical interpretation of term specificity and its application in retrieval

Abstract: The exhaustivity of document descriptions and the specificity of index terms are usually regarded as independent. It is suggested that specificity should be interpreted statistically, as a function of term use rather than of term meaning. The effects on retrieval of variations in term specificity are examined, experiments with three test collections showing in particular that frequently‐occurring terms are required for good overall performance. It is argued that terms should be weighted according to collection frequency, so that matches on less frequent, more specific, terms are of greater value than matches on frequent terms. Results for the test collections show that considerable improvements in performance are obtained with this very simple procedure.

Models in information behaviour research

Abstract: This paper presents an outline of models of information seeking and other aspects of information behaviour, showing the relationship between communication and information behaviour in general with information seeking and information searching in information retrieval systems. It is suggested that these models address issues at various levels of information behaviour and that they can be related by envisaging a ‘nesting’ of models. It is also suggested that, within both information seeking research and information searching research, alternative models address similar issues in related ways and that the models are complementary rather than conflicting. Finally, an alternative, problem‐solving model is presented, which, it is suggested, provides a basis for relating the models in appropriate research strategies.

On user studies and information needs

Abstract: Apart from information retrieval there is virtually no other area of information science that has occasioned as much research effort and writing as ‘user studies’. Within user studies the investigation of ‘information needs’ has been the subject of much debate and no little confusion. The aim of this paper is to attempt to reduce this confusion by devoting attention to the definition of some concepts and by proposing the basis for a theory of the motivations for information‐seeking behaviour.

Understanding inverse document frequency: on theoretical arguments for IDF

Abstract: The term‐weighting function known as IDF was proposed in 1972, and has since been extremely widely used, usually as part of a TF*IDF function. It is often described as a heuristic, and many papers have been written (some based on Shannon's Information Theory) seeking to establish some theoretical basis for it. Some of these attempts are reviewed, and it is shown that the Information Theory approaches are problematic, but that there are good theoretical justifications of both IDF and TF*IDF in the traditional probabilistic model of information retrieval.