Indexing historical, political cartoons for retrieval

Abstract

Previous literature indicates that political cartoons are difficult to index because they have a subjective nature, and indexers may fail to understand the content of a cartoon or may interpret its content subjectively. This study aims to investigate the index-ability of historical, political cartoons and the variables that affect the indexing results. It proposes an indexing scheme for describing historical, political cartoons, and uses that indexing scheme to conduct indexing experiments. Through indexing experiments and statistical analysis, three variables, which affect the indexing results, are identified: indexers, indexing fields, and cartoons. There is a statistically significant difference in inter-indexer consistency on indexers, indexing fields, and cartoons. The paper argues that historical, political cartoons can be indexed if knowledgeable indexers are available, and the context of the cartoons is provided. It also proposes a mediated, collaborative indexing approach to indexing such materials.