International Atomic Energy Agency INIS Training Seminar Principles of Information Retrieval and Query Formulation 07 – 11 October 2013 Vienna, Austria Bekele Negeri INIS Unit Nuclear Information Specialist

International Atomic Energy AgencyOutline Databases (Textual) types Planning searches Formulating queries Measure of Search effectiveness Using search results and queries October 2013INIS Training Seminar2

International Atomic Energy Agency Databases (textual) Databases consist of data (records) described in fields and a means by which to search these fields, a search engine. Databases may look different on screen but the underlying principles for searching and formulating search strategies are common to all. October 2013INIS Training Seminar3

International Atomic Energy Agency Bibliographic Databases (Types) Bibliographic Databases: provide only citation or reference author(s), title, subject(s) and publisher..) and with this information you should be able to locate the item in the Library. Bibliographic with some full text content: these enhanced databases include keywords and abstracts and often, but not always, include the full text of an article. Bibliographic databases with full text content: these databases include the entire full text for all articles and other documents indexed. October 2013INIS Training Seminar4

International Atomic Energy Agency Planning your search “Understanding the Problem is Half of the Solution” Define precisely the information you are seeking Identify the concepts that represent the problem October 2013INIS Training Seminar5

International Atomic Energy Agency October 2013INIS Training Seminar6 Planning a search: example Risk of medical radiation exposure? To whom: to patients or doctors and medical technicians? If to patients: are you concerned about exposure due to radiodiagnostics (CT, X-ray..) or due to radiation therapy or both? If radiotherapy: are you concerned about radionuclide therapy or external irradiation therapy? If about personnel: are you interested about safety policy of medical establishements?

International Atomic Energy Agency Planning your search (Cont’d) Topic: Risk of radiation exposure of medical staff in a radiotherapy department Concepts: Exposure to radiation Medical staff Radiotherapy Are we looking for documents In certain language, from certain country.. Latest publications Only records with full text documents, or journal citations..? October 2013INIS Training Seminar7

International Atomic Energy Agency IINIS Database Fields Numerical (Exact or Range search) Year of publication (PY) Reference Number (RN) Free Text Title (TI) Authors (AU) Source (SO)Abstract (AB) Controlled Vocabulary Language (LA) Country of Input (CO) Descriptors (DE) Indexer-assigned descriptors (DEI) Computer-upposted descriptors (DEC) October 2013INIS Training Seminar8

International Atomic Energy Agency Search Strategy Simple search single search term or phrase “Oncology”, “nuclear safety” Advanced search (combining concepts) Boolean Operators:OR, AND, NOT Text Operators any (includes any), all (includes all), exact phrase Numeric Operators equal, more, less, more or equal, less or equal Truncation, Wildcard Multilingual Search October 2013INIS Training Seminar9

International Atomic Energy Agency October 2013INIS Training Seminar10 Query Syntax Google Search Appliance

International Atomic Energy Agency Query Formulation Translating your search concepts into proper search syntax For the Topic: Risk of radiation exposure of medical staff in a radiotherapy department Simple to complex MEDICAL PERSONNEL (is a BT for RADIOLOGICAL PERSONNEL) OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE or OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY or RADIATION PROTECTION RADIOTHERAPY Try to search for individual terms and explore the database; you may identify other key concepts like radiation doses, ALARA, dose limits… Then combine them using boolean operators (and, or, not) Some databases allow you to combine searches while others allow you to combine your results during selection of records October 2013INIS Training Seminar11

International Atomic Energy Agency Measuring Search Effectiveness Precision & Recall Recall: the ratio of the number of relevant records retrieved to the total number of relevant records in the database. October 2013INIS Training Seminar12

International Atomic Energy Agency Precision: the ratio of the number of relevant records retrieved to the total number of irrelevant and relevant records retrieved. Precision and recall are Inversely related High recall = comprehensive retrieval but high noise High Precision = only relevant records but miss out good records Source: October 2013INIS Training Seminar13

International Atomic Energy Agency Optimize your search strategy Precision Search in particular field Search in DEI (indexer assigned descriptor) Use exact Phrase Combine using “AND” Recall Search across fields Combine synonyms, related terms, broad or general terms Use “any” or “all” words Optimise Use your best judgment From simple to complex October 2013INIS Training Seminar14

International Atomic Energy Agency Using your Query and search results Selecting relevant records select format (pdf/ html/excel..) Printing/saving search results Storing query Save and run query Subscribe Feeds October 2013INIS Training Seminar15

International Atomic Energy Agency Thank you! October 2013INIS Training Seminar16