Opinion paper: Design criteria for documentation retrieval languages

• Published in: Journal of the American Society for Information Science Vol. 29; no. 4; pp. 191 - 199
• Main Authors: Gebhardt, Friedrich, Stellmacher, Imant
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, D.C Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 01.07.1978; American Documentation Institute; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subjects: Algorithms; Command languages; Computerised information retrieval; Computerized information storage and retrieval; Computerized subject indexing; Design; Documentation; Information retrieval; Information science; Information storage and retrieval; Information systems; Information work; Interfaces; Language; Languages; Legal information; Librarians; Natural language; Online information retrieval; Programming languages; Queries; Retrieval; Searching; Subject indexing; Technical services; User interface; Germany
• ISSN: 0002-8231; 1097-4571
• DOI: 10.1002/asi.4630290407

Query languages for document retrieval systems should be simple and easy to learn for the casual user; they should provide all conceivable facilities for the experienced user. These goals comprise the most serious contradictions that evolve between all the design criteria collected, compared, and evaluated in this paper. The proposed solution or, at least, relief to this conflict is to provide the user with a simple, clearly designed subset of the language that nevertheless includes all important query functions, while the additions to modify, shorten, improve, and extend it are left to the experienced user. It is stressed that the simple data formats available with most systems are insufficient; the need for more elaborate structures is substantiated. A point is made for a formal rather than a natural language for document retrieval.