INDEXING TECHNIQUES

1
INDEXING TECHNIQUES

• The process of constructing document surrogates
  or document representations is called as Subject
  Indexing.
• Indexing has to specify exactly the content of
  documents. This needs a language by which the
  contents could be described precisely (i.e.
  Indexing Language).
• Indexing includes
• Conceptual Analysis, and
• Representation (of the Contents)

2
Types of Indexing Techniques

• There are broadly two types of Indexing
  Techniques or Indexing Methods. They are
• a) Pre-Coordinate Indexing, and
• b) Post-Coordinate Indexing.
• Pre-Coordinate Indexing Systems A Compound or
  composite subject is analyzed into its
  constituent concepts according to a plan and
  these constituent concepts are then represented
  by symbols (when using a Classification Scheme)
  or Words of the Indexing Language in use. The
  next step is to synthesize or combine the
  components in order, according to the rules of
  the language (i.e. coordination of concepts).

3

• That is the Coordination of concepts contained in
  a documents is done in-anticipation of readers
  approach.
• In Pre-coordinate Indexing systems, the Subject
  Heading consists of two or many index terms and
  these terms are arranged in a pre-determined
  order using its own syntax or the citation order.
• The Characteristics of Indexing language are the
  syntax, the method of rotation or cycling of
  components, the significant word order, use of
  relationship symbols, system of references, etc.
• The examples are Chain Indexing, PRECIS,etc.

4
Post-Coordinate Indexing Systems

• A compound or composite subject is analyzed into
  its constituent components, but they will be kept
  separately uncoordinated by the indexer.
• Coordination of concepts is done at the time of
  search by the user.
• These indexing systems could bypass / overcome
  the most difficult question of deciding on an
  order of significance (which eventually controls
  the approaches that could be provided by a
  pre-coordinate Indexing system).
• E.g. Uniterm Indexing Zatocoding system Optical
  coincidence methods(Peek-a-Boosystem)