Information retrieval from annotated texts

Abstract

Methods for the correct and efficient handling of annotations in a full-text retrieval system were investigated. The problem with annotations is that they cannot be treated as regular text, since this would disrupt proximity searches, but on the other hand, they cannot be ignored, as they may carry important information. Moreover, in some cases, a user may wish to restrict a search to prespecified subsets of annotations. We suggest a new way of processing the database to overcome the above dilemma. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.