Indeterminacy in the subject access to documents

Abstract

Subject access to documents is influenced by two kinds of indeterminacy: the indeterminacy of the indexer's selection of indexing descriptors and the indeterminacy of the inquirer's selection of search terms. The possibility of successful retrieval depends on how these two indeterminacies interact. Five types of interaction are discussed and a change in the traditional method of subject searching is suggested as a way of reducing the effect of one of these two indeterminacies and of avoiding those types of interactions where the retrieval of the desired document(s) is impossible.