Abstract
The paper is divided into three parts. The first develops a framework for evaluating the indexing needs of the humanities with reference to four sets of contrasts; user (need)-oriented vs. document-oriented indexing; subject indexing vs. attribute indexing; scientific writing vs. humanistic writing; and topical relevance vs. logical relevance vs. evidential relevance vs. aesthetic relevance. The indexing needs of the humanities range broadly across these contrasts. The second part establishes the centrality of relationships to the communication of indexable matter and examines the advantages and disadvantages of means used for their expression in both natural languages and index languages. The use of a relational structure, such as a frame, is shown to represent perhaps the best available option. The last part illustrates where the use of relational structures in humanities indexing would help meet some of the needs previously identified. Although not a panacea, the adoption of frame-based indexing in the humanities might substantially improve the retrieval of its literature.