Expert document retrieval via semantic measurement

摘要

A new technology for intelligent full text document retrieval is presented. The retrieval of a document is treated as an expert system problem, recognizing that human document retrieval is expert behavior. The technology is semantic measurement. A working prototype system, LIBRARY, has been built based on the technology. Input is a request for information, in unrestricted technical English; output is all documents with measured content similar to that of the request, ranked in order of relevance. Retrieval is unaffected by similarity or dissimilarity of terms between request and document. LIBRARY's performance is comparable to that of an expert human librarian, representing a significant improvement over traditional document retrieval systems.