Using ordinary language to access metadata of diverse types of information resources: Trade classifications and numeric data

in this paper, we deal with the retrieval of numeric data from information sources that present special challenges. We describe a new method to deal with the challenge of accessing this special type of data indexed by unfamiliar metadata vocabularies. The purpose of our Entry Vocabulary Module (EVM) approach is to facilitate use of unfamiliar metadata vocabularies to access data. We have developed a method of mapping language found in text of titles and abstracts to metadata vocabulary terms. This enables people to use ordinary language queries to search databases indexed with unfamiliar metadata vocabularies. Numeric data lacks textual resources we draw upon to build associations between ordinary language and metadata terms. Therefore, we have extended the EVM approach to deal with numeric database searching.