Automatic Back of Book Indexing

Information has become an indispensable resource that is used in all walks of life. It is transmitted in various ways such as printed books, magazines, websites, audio and video media, etc. As the extent of information is immense, it is not an easy job for one to find his/her specific need. In such cases building and maintaining an index is a worthwhile process. Back of book indexes and table of contents have been the two most important means for accessing specific information in books. Automatic procedures have been in use for the generation of back of book indexes. However, automatic back of indexing has not been used for Amharic books. Only a few Amharic books which are getting published nowadays try to constitute a manually constructed back of book index. Table of contents does not do much for the reader in search of specific information from a book. It will be highly time taking or even unsuccessful to retrieve the information sought. This research work presents design, development and performance evaluation of the statistical book indexing approach for the case of Amharic books.