Abstract
Presents the first-ever ARIST chapter devoted to subject access points (SAPs) in databases. Reviews the status of SAPS (search fields or document representations) for accessing electronically stored information and data, and then briefly reviews the history of SAPs, whether they are terms, codes, contexts, relationships, etc. Provides a taxonomy or classification of SAPs. Classifies SAPs as follows: verbal versus nonverbal or symbolic; long form (e.g., abstracts) versus short form (e.g., a single keyword or classification code); controlled (closed systems) versus uncontrolled (open systems) forms; derived (e.g., titles) versus assigned (e.g., identifiers) forms; forms based on checklist or facet analysis versus forms based on free analysis; explicit versus implicit; content-oriented (or descriptive) versus question-oriented (or evaluative); pre-coordinated versus post-coordinated indexing terms; syntactic indexing forms (e.g., links and role indicators) versus forms without syntax; and manually-produced versus computer-generated. Looks at research on specific SAPs including: document titles; abstracts; references and citations; full text; and descriptors, identifiers, classification codes, and other kinds of access data. Reviews investigations of various data elements as access points both from the quantitative and qualitative points of view with respect to their utility for increasing precision or recall. Similarly investigates full text, descriptors, identifiers, classification codes, and other kinds of access data to determine their relative value as access points.
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