• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.15
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• pp.225-266
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• 1988

Various theories and techniques for the subject catalog have been developed since Charles Ammi Cutter first tried to formulate rules for the construction of subject headings in 1876. However, they do not seem to be appropriate to Korean language because the syntax and semantics of Korean language are different from those of English and other European languages. This study therefore attempts to develop a new Korean subject indexing system, namely Korean String Indexing System(KOSIS), in order to increase the use of subject catalogs. For this purpose, advantages and disadvantages between the classed subject catalog nd the alphabetical subject catalog, which are typical subject ca-alogs in libraries, are investigated, and most of remarkable subject indexing systems, in particular the PRECIS developed by the British National Bibliography, are reviewed and analysed. KOSIS is a string indexing based on purely the syntax and semantics of Korean language, even though considerable principles of PRECIS are applied to it. The outlines of KOSIS are as follows: 1) KOSIS is based on the fundamentals of natural language and an ingenious conjunction of human indexing skills and computer capabilities. 2) KOSIS is. 3 string indexing based on the 'principle of context-dependency.' A string of terms organized accoding to his principle shows remarkable affinity with certain patterns of words in ordinary discourse. From that point onward, natural language rather than classificatory terms become the basic model for indexing schemes. 3) KOSIS uses 24 role operators. One or more operators should be allocated to the index string, which is organized manually by the indexer's intellectual work, in order to establish the most explicit syntactic relationship of index terms. 4) Traditionally, a single -line entry format is used in which a subject heading or index entry is presented as a single sequence of words, consisting of the entry terms, plus, in some cases, an extra qualifying term or phrase. But KOSIS employs a two-line entry format which contains three basic positions for the production of index entries. The 'lead' serves as the user's access point, the 'display' contains those terms which are themselves context dependent on the lead, 'qualifier' sets the lead term into its wider context. 5) Each of the KOSIS entries is co-extensive with the initial subject statement prepared by the indexer, since it displays all the subject specificities. Compound terms are always presented in their natural language order. Inverted headings are not produced in KOSIS. Consequently, the precision ratio of information retrieval can be increased. 6) KOSIS uses 5 relational codes for the system of references among semantically related terms. Semantically related terms are handled by a different set of routines, leading to the production of 'See' and 'See also' references. 7) KOSIS was riginally developed for a classified catalog system which requires a subject index, that is an index -which 'trans-lates' subject index, that is, an index which 'translates' subjects expressed in natural language into the appropriate classification numbers. However, KOSIS can also be us d for a dictionary catalog system. Accordingly, KOSIS strings can be manipulated to produce either appropriate subject indexes for a classified catalog system, or acceptable subject headings for a dictionary catalog system. 8) KOSIS is able to maintain a constistency of index entries and cross references by means of a routine identification of the established index strings and reference system. For this purpose, an individual Subject Indicator Number and Reference Indicator Number is allocated to each new index strings and new index terms, respectively. can produce all the index entries, cross references, and authority cards by means of either manual or mechanical methods. Thus, detailed algorithms for the machine-production of various outputs are provided for the institutions which can use computer facilities.