On the Design and Evaluation of a Multi-dimensional Approach to Information Retrieval

Abstract

We present a method of searching text collections that takes advantage of the inherent hierarchrical information within documents and integrates searches of structured and unstructured data. Multidimensional databases (MDB), designed for accessing data along hierarchical dimensions, are effective for information retrieval. MDB are frequently used for On-line Analytic Processing (OLAP) applications with great success. We demonstrate a method of using OLAP techniques on a text collection. This combines traditional information retrieval and the slicing, dicing, drill-down, and roll-up of OLAP. We demonstrate use of a prototype for searching documents from the TREC collection. 1 Introduction # We propose a technique for searching text and structured data using an On-line Analytic Processing (OLAP) tool. We present how text is modeled and accessed in a multi-dimensional database, taking advantage of hierarchical information in both structured data and text. Hierarchies perme...