A comparison of keyword‐in‐context (KWIC) indexing of titles with a subject heading classification system

Research was directed at comparing the results of automatic computer indexing of titles by the KWIC system with human indexing using a subject heading system. One source of data was 803 legal research projects and theses titles indexed under a modified form of the Index to Legal Periodicals (ILP) system. The other source of data was 2,625 legal articles classified under the ILP system. Interpretation of data revealed, among other things, that 64.4% of the title entries contained as keywords one or more of the ILP subject heading words under which they were indexed; and 25.1% contained logical equivalents. The remaining 10.5% of the title entries had nondescriptive titles. The author concludes that KWICing of legal titles produces an index which costs less than a subject heading system in both time and cost of production and which ranks high in “find‐ability”.