Maurits Van Der GraafEefke SmitContent mining is shorthand for “automated information extraction and relationship analysis.” A report from the Publishing Research Consortium notes that content mining is increasingly of value to a broad group of users, from information scientists who use it for sophisticated indexing and clustering of related documents, to drug discovery researchers who use mining techniques to discover new disease treatments or new application areas for existing medicines; and even among marketing professionals, who use text analytics for ‘sentiment analysis’ of large crowds by measuring positive versus negative expressions around topics as they occur on Facebook or Twitter.

Leading CCC’s Chris Kenneally into the content mine are two Amsterdam-based researchers who prepared the PRC report. Eefke Smit is the Director of Standards and Technology for International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers, and she coordinates the activities of the STM Future Lab Committee. Maurits Van Der Graaf, is the owner of Pleiade Management & Consultancy, with expertise in publishing, public education, and library and documentation institutes. They explain why content mining is tipped to be increasingly important in publishing and research, and in what areas.

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