A study of indexer consistency
Frances I. Hurwitz · American Documentation · 1969
Abstract The study attempts to compare the indexing terms assigned by two different indexers to the same documents, as well as those assigned by the same indexer to the same documents at different points in time. The indexing system under study is a coordinate system using a subject heading list to index monographs on a chapter by chapter basis. A controlled list of subheadings is used in conjunction with the main list. In studying self‐consistency, chapters of certain monographs were selected for re‐indexing by the same indexer four to six months after the entire book originally was handled. Inter‐indexer consistency is determined by re‐indexing chapters of a book completed by another indexer with similar subject background and indexing experience. Degree of consistency is determined by totalling the number of identical terms assigned to a document at each indexing, as compared to the total number of terms assigned to that document.