Detecting events with date and place information in unstructured text

ABSTRACT

Digital libraries of historical documents provide a wealth of information about past events, often in unstructured form. Once dates and place names are identified and disambiguated, using methods that can differ by genre, we examine collocations to detect events. Collocations can be ranked by several measures, which vary in effectiveness according to type of events, but the log-likelihood measure (-2 log &lgr;) offers a reasonable balance between frequently and infrequently mentioned events and between larger and smaller spatial and temporal ranges. Significant date-place collocations can be displayed on timelines and maps as an interface to digital libraries. More detailed displays can highlight key names and phrases associated with a given event.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.1 Content Analysis and Indexing

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Graphical user interfaces (GUI)

General Terms:
Design

Keywords:
event detection, geographic visualization, phrase browsing