DIALOG and Mead Join the Relevance Ranks

Abstract

New, non-Boolean, natural language search techniques - Westlaw\u27s WIN, DIALOG\u27s TARGET, and Mead Data Central\u27s FREESTYLE - are based on the assumption that the standard command-driven online systems coupled with Boolean logic searching are not only difficult to learn, but may sometimes miss relevant documents. Although each new product works somewhat differently, all 3 offer an alternative to searching with command interfaces and Boolean/proximity operators. They offer natural language input, with no need for commands or logical operators. This input method is coupled with so-called associative or statistical retrieval techniques that provide relevance ranking of search results. The question of how relevance search systems retrieve compared to the tried-and-true Boolean search engines is explored