MeSH represented MEDLINE query results

Abstract

With a functional Semantic Web on the horizon, practical methods to take advantage of controlled vocabularies should be investigated. Due to the maturity of MEDLINE and UMLS, we have an opportunity, within the medical domain, to begin exploration of ideas which may in the near future be applied to the web in general. We present an implemented information retrieval system which uses the MeSH terminology as a basis to present MEDLINE results to the user in a hierarchically-browseable way. This demonstrates how to use hierarchical categories to represent a large number of results in manageable way, which is required in many information-gathering tasks, particularly in research of published literature. A pilot evaluation gives evidence of usability of such a system. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.