Other fields use other information indexing methods
Most electronic databases have evolved from data collections which were
made for specific purposes. Database organization is often heavily
influenced by such historical orientation. For example:
- Literature databases are typically indexed by a "Document ID".
- Primary (indexed) fields contain information such as title, author,
citation, publisher, etc.
- Abstract, figures and/or full text are typically stored as secondary
(non-indexed) data.
- Additional indicies are often provided to support the original purpose,
e.g., keywords. Such indexing methods are typically designed per database
and are non-universal.
- As integrated information sources, we would like to universally search
these databases by content rather than by predefined index.
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