A spatial user interface to the astronomical literature

¹ Observatoire Astronomique, 11 rue de l'Université, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
² Faculty of Informatics, University of Ulster, Londonderry BT48 7JL, Northern Ireland

Send offprint request to: S. Lesteven

Received: 26 September 1997
Accepted: 1 December 1997

Abstract

We recall the properties of the Kohonen self-organizing feature map (SOM or SOFM), and explain how such maps can be used for information retrieval. We present an application to a bibliographic database. Our neural net can contain more than one level when necessary, which allows users to modify its spatial configuration. It is available for interactive use on the World-Wide Web (http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/A+A/map.pl). The interface that we have designed for browsing in the documentary database will be explained in detail.