The Role of Subject Access in Information Filtering

The sheer amount of electronic information makes filtering a vital component of contemporary information work. Field observations of managers and engineers at the Boeing Company who received filtered information about computer-related topics revealed criteria they used to select, and those they used to reject, documents within their subject inter-est. Responses to a questionnaire indicated that some criteria are used more frequently and are more important than others. The few criteria that related to the subject matter of the documents were not limited to a subject domain. Other criteria addressed the form of the documents, their content, and writing style. In addition, some criteria were stable and somewhat objective and others were situational and subjective. An examination of these criteria shows that many of them could be used in filtering, in addition to subject-based mechanisms, and that they might be particularly useful for systems with multiple sources because they can provide a useful filter that is not based on the subject domain.published or submitted for publicatio