BROWSING - A FRAMEWORK FOR SEEKING FUNCTIONAL INFORMATION

Indexing, classification, and other aspects of formal systems for acce ss to documents represent documents and questions in topical terms. Th e discovery and elaboration of new knowledge generally implies new con cepts and new connections, thus scholars cannot generate topical descr iptions of their requirements. Several informal activities generally d escribed by the term browsing serve scholars by reforming the represen tation issues in idiosyncratic and functional terms. A conceptual fram ework for browsing is constructed on issues of the representation of k nowledge states and documents.