Content
The "content" of a message or a document is defined by Jaenecke (1994, p. 4):
"The content of a message is the sum of all possible information that may be extracted from it".
With this definition it is established
that while the information depends on the receiver
is the content independent of the receiver. In other words: The content is a
potential of informing and thus of information.
Jacso (1997) notes that database quality is judged by many criteria,
including content, ease of use, accessibility, customer support, documentation
and value-to-cost ratio. The principal factor in determining database quality is
content [see also coverage]. Database content is defined by the scope and coverage of the database
and its currency, accuracy, consistency and completeness. The scope of a
database is determined by its composition and coverage, including the time
period (length), number of journals and other primary sources (width), number of
articles included from journals (depth) and geographic and language
distribution. The currency of a database is measured by the time lag between
publication of the primary source and availability of the corresponding records
in the database. Database accuracy is the extent to which the records are free
of misspellings. Consistency is the extent to which records within the database
follow the same rules with regard to record structure, format and representation.
Record completeness is measured by the consistency with which applicable data
elements are assigned to all the records in the database.
These criteria can be evaluated qualitatively and/or quantitatively in order to
determine the profile of a database, and to ascertain any needed defensive
search strategies. Jacsó reviews the major contributions to the literature of
the past few years dealing with content evaluation methods, techniques and
results and provides a background summary of milestone studies.
Current Contents is the name of a series of
periodicals
issued by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). The provide copies of
current tables of contents from journals on a weekly basis.
TOC alert (table-of-contents alert) is the name for electronic services distributing current tables of contents.
The concept of content is often used as in opposition to form. In general is
subject analysis
concerned with the contents of documents, while
descriptive
cataloging is concerned with the forms of documents. The relation between
form and content is also a general philosophical issue and an issue in, for
example, linguistics.
The content of a document is not identical with its
subject or aboutness. The content of a document
may or may not express its subject (and the expression may have a problematic
bias). The difference between content and
subject/aboutness may be illustrated by an example: "My father is fat"
is about a particular person. The content is what is said about that person.
Aboutness/subject are thus categories, while the content is descriptions,
properties or values of the subject. In linguistics are the terms
topic-comment used about this difference
(cf., Wikipedia, 2006).
A content provider or content
supplier is a person or company that creates, structures, and delivers
informational products. Content providers may own or have the right to content.
They often license content to application providers for delivery to end users.
Literature:
Jaenecke, Peter: To what End Knowledge Organization? Knowledge Organization, 1994, 21(1), 3-11.
Jacso,
P. (1997). Content evaluation of databases. Annual Review of Information
Science and Technology, 32, 231-267.
Poulsen, C. (1996). Tables of contents in library catalogs: A quantitative
examination of analytic catalogs. Library Resources & Technical Services, 40(2),
133-138.
Wikipedia. The free encyclopedia. (2006). Topic-comment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic-comment
Winke, R C. (1999). An analysis of tables of contents in recent English-language books. Library Resources & Technical Services, 43(1), 14-27.
LC Table of Contents Project Update: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/lccn/lccn0913.html
See also: Content analysis;
Coverage
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 19-09-2006