Artificial Intelligence Lab, Department of MIS, University of Arizona / In information facilities such as libraries, finding documents that are relevant to a user query is
difficult because of the indeterminism involved in the process by which documents are indexed,
and the latitude users have in choosing terms to express a query on a particular topic. Reference
librarians play an important support role in coping with this indeterminism, focusing user queries
through an interactive dialog. Based on thirty detailed observations of user/librarian interactions
obtained through a field experiment, we have developed a computational model designed to simulate
the reference librarian. The consultation includes two phases. The first is handle search,
where the userâ s rough problem statement and a user stereotyping imposed by the librarian are
used in determining the appropriate tools (handles). The second phase is document search, involving
the search for documents within a chosen handle. We are collaborating with the university
library for putting our model to use as an intelligent assistant for an online retrieval system.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/106096 |
| Date | January 1987 |
| Creators | Chen, Hsinchun, Dhar, Vasant |
| Publisher | AAAI |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Conference Paper |
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