Uniterm Indexing

Uniterm Indexing
• Uniterm indexing system is the best known coordinate indexing system
based on term entry principle.

• It was Mortimer Taube who devised in 1953 as a means of dealing with

the research reports acquired by the US Armed Services Technical
Information Agency (ASTIA)

• This new system of indexing which depends on natural language and is

free from the problem of a fixed citation order.

• Its main distinguishing feature is that coordination is done only at the

output or service stage and not at the input or indexing stage
 Uniterms
• The uniterms are single but significant words, just like keywords,
selected directly from the document to be indexed.

• They represent the ideas or concepts discussed in the document. In

order words, uniterms are units of information contained in a
document. If a document contains more than one uniterm, it should be
indexed under each uniterm. For example, a document discussing
Management of Libraries contains two concepts – Management and
Libraries. So it should be indexed under both the terms.
 Indexing Process
• The process involved in indexing documents, according to a simple
manual uniterm system, are as follows:

• Providing Identification Number: A document to be indexed is first

accessioned or at least assigned a unique identification, e.g.,

523 Management of Libraries

718 Libraries and Society

• The accession file is maintained as usual in numerical order.

 Indexing Process
• Isolating uniterms: The subject content of each document is
thoroughly and carefully analyzed and appropriate unit terms or
concepts are isolated. In the above examples the unit terms will be:

For document number 523

(1) Management and (2) Libraries

For document number 718

(1) Libraries and (2) Society

• Entry Making: For each uniterm a specially designed card of 5” X 8”

size is prepared. The card has a space for heading where the uniterm
is written in capital letters. The rest of the space is divided into ten
columns from 0 to 9 for entering the document number.
 Indexing Process
• Terminal Digit Posting: The number of each document containing a
particular uniterm is written in the card representing that uniterm. The
“terminal” or final digit of the document number determines the
column in which the number should be entered. In the above
examples the document number 523 will be entered in column 3 and
document number 718 will be entered in column 8, as digits 3 and 8
are terminal digits of the respective documents. As new documents
are indexed, fresh cards are prepared for new concepts and if any
document contains any of the concepts for which cards are already
available, its number is entered in the appropriate existing cards and
thus the process continues.
 Indexing Process

LIBRARIES
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

411 523 99
 Indexing Process

MANAGEMENT
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
523 705 66 718
 Indexing Process

SOCIETY
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
100 212 514 718

•Filing: All the cards are filed in simple alphabetical order.

 Searching Process
When a request for documents on a topic is received, the documents are
searched in the following manner:

• Analysis of Request: The subject of the documents sought is first analyzed and
translated into appropriate uniterms.

• Culling of Relevant Cards: The cards representing those uniterms are then extracted
from the alphabetical sequence.

• Identifying Relevant Documents: The relevant documents are then searched out by
comparing the numbers in the culled out cards. Terminal digit posting helps in this work
of number comparison. When a number is found common in these cards it is presumed
that the document represented by that number discuses the concept represented by the
respective cards and is therefore likely to be relevant to the user. In the cards shown
above document no. 523 appears in the first two cards and so it contains the two
concepts Management and Libraries, while document no. 718 appears in the first card
and the last card and therefore it contains the two concepts Libraries and Society.
 Advantages of UNITERM
• The documents indexed by UNITERM may be arranged by their accession or serial
numbers and no classification system is required for this purpose.

• The work at the input or indexing stage is very simple as coordination of concepts is
done only at the output or dissemination stage.

• The system being very simple and using natural language can be explained to the users
easily.

• As many items can be included in a single card, the physical size of the index can be
reduced.

• The reports and pamphlets indexed by this process can be conveniently stored in boxes
as the new items are only added at the end and there is no question of insertion in
between the existing sequence.
 Disadvantages of UNITERM
• The uniterms used to index documents resemble the isolates of faceted classification,
but they are arranged in an artificial alphabetical order.

• The system uses only single terms as headings and coordination of the required terms
is achieved only when a search is made.

• Coordination of terms may not always yield the required combination order, e.g., two
entries under the headings “Management” and “Education” will enlist the identification
numbers of all documents dealing with Management Education as also Management of
Education and a user seeking documents on only Management Education will also get
those on Management of Education.
 Disadvantages of UNITERM
• There may be also false coordination, e.g., a document entitled “Education in east Asia”
covering two topics, viz., School Education in China and College Education in Japan,
will be indexed under five uniterms, viz., School, College, Education, China and Japan,
and a person seeking documents on College Education in China or School Education in
Japan will get this document retrieved although these topics have not been discussed in
the document.

• The terms by which a reader searches and the terms under which the documents have
been indexed may not always tally; readers often search by generic terms, but generic
relationships are not shown in the entries.

• Uncontrolled use of synonyms, homonyms, and singular and plural forms may affect the
efficient functioning of the system.

• The system involves two-stage search -- first, location of the required document number
through card searching and second, finding out the document with the help of the
number identified in the index cards.

• Only a limited number of documents can be entered on a single card; new cards can be
prepared for the same heading but that increases difficulty in search work.
 Example

MANAGEMENT
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

21 13
 Indexing Process

LIBRARIES
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

21 17
 Indexing Process

EDUCATION
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

13
 Indexing Process

CATALOGUING
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10
 Indexing Process

PHILIPPINES
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

17
 Indexing Process

BOOKS
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10