The use of PRECIS in indexing Chinese documents: an experimental study

The main factors which prompted the present study were: (1) PRECIS has a linguistic universal feature for computerized subject indexing; (2) the largest Chinese bibliography and index published by the National Central Library of Taiwan still lack subject indexes; (3) both mainland China and Taiwan have created their bibliographic databases based on UNIMARC; and (4) the field 670 of the UNIMARC is reserved for PRECIS. This study has aimed to experiment with PRECIS for indexing Chinese documents, generate Chinese subject indexes using PRECIS, and suggest the use of PRECIS in online retrieval in Chinese bibliographic databases. The last objective is an assumption which was based on the achievement of the first objective. [Continues.]