Non‐agricultural databases and thesauri: Retrieval of subject headings and non‐controlled terms in relation to agriculture

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to assess the utility of non‐agriculture‐specific information systems, databases, and respective controlled vocabularies (thesauri) in organising and retrieving agricultural information. The purpose is to identify thesaurus‐linked tree structures, controlled subject headings/terms (heading words, descriptors), and principal database‐dependent characteristics and assess how controlled terms improve retrieval results (recall) in relation to free‐text/uncontrolled terms in abstracts and document titles.

Design/methodology/approach

Several different hosts (interfaces, platforms, portals) and databases were used: CSA Illumina (ERIC, LISA), Ebscohost (Academic Search Complete, Medline, Political Science Complete), Ei‐Engineering Village (Compendex, Inspec), OVID (PsycINFO), ProQuest (ABI/Inform Global). The search‐terms agriculture and agricultural and truncated word‐stem agricultur‐ were employed. Permuted (rotated index) search fields were used to retrieve terms from thesauri. Subject‐heading search was assessed in relation to free‐text search, based on abstracts and document titles.

Findings

All thesauri contain agriculture‐based headings; however, associative, hierarchical and synonymous relationships show important inter‐database differences. Using subject headings along with abstracts and titles in search syntax (query) sometimes improves retrieval by up to 60 per cent. Retrieval depends on search fields and database‐specifics, such as autostemming (lemmatization), explode function, word‐indexing, or phrase‐indexing.

Research limitations/implications

Inter‐database and host comparison, on consistent principles, can be limited because of some particular host‐ and database‐specifics.

Practical implications

End‐users may exploit databases more competently and thus achieve better retrieval results in searching for agriculture‐related information.

Originality/value

The function of as many as ten databases in different disciplines in providing information relevant to subject matter that is not a topical focus of databases is assessed.

Citation

Bartol, T. (2012), "Non‐agricultural databases and thesauri: Retrieval of subject headings and non‐controlled terms in relation to agriculture", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 46 No. 2, pp. 258-276. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330331211221873