FICTION RETRIEVAL: EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF A SEARCH SYSTEM BASED ON USERS' VALUE CRITERIA (PART 1)

These papers describe the development and evaluation of a new classification system for fiction based on an analysis of users' formulations of needs. Users of fiction generally do not require specific books to be precisely identified. Their criteria for accepting books are related to a combination of several different features, such as subject matter, emotional experience, readability etc. Previous attempts to design alternative classification schemes for fiction are reviewed, and the inadequacies of these systems are discussed. New retrieval tools such as a systematic card catalogue and alphabetic indexes have been constructed on the basis of a multi‐dimensional classification system. A number of search tests in laboratory conditions have been conducted in order to evaluate the different search tools. Finally, issues like differences between concept identification in fiction and non‐fiction, recall/precision, vocabulary control etc., are raised and suggestions are made for future experiments with subject approaches to the searching of fiction.