The Issue of Word Division in Cataloging Chinese Language Titles

This study addresses how syllable or word division in bibliographic records of Chinese materials affects title keyword searches. Title keyword searches with both syllable division and word division are conducted in OCLC, RLIN, and Peking University Library (PKUL), and results are compared in terms of recall and precision. It is found that with both OCLC and RLIN, the recall and precision percentages vary greatly if the syllables of a keyword in the search are aggregated or not. In contrast, for PKUL, the recall and precision percentages remain high and the same in both ways. The findings suggest that PKUL has two advantages overOCLC and RLIN that would reduce human errors inword division in cataloging and searching. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: © 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]