The effectiveness of the Human Relations Area Files as an information
retrieval system for cultural data is directly dependent on the consistency
with which the information in it is categorized. The present results show
that HRAF coding reliability compares favorably with that expected for
similar tasks in the social sciences. They also show that reliability varies as
a function of the degree of fineness of retrieval. For broad retrieval, agree
ment ranges between 68% and 78%. For more detailed retrieval, coding re
liability is somewhat lower.
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