An
index term,
subject term,
subject heading, or
descriptor, in
information retrieval, is a term that captures the essence of the topic of a document. Index terms make up a
controlled vocabulary for use in
bibliographic records. They are an integral part of bibliographic control, which is the function by which libraries collect, organize and disseminate documents. They are used as keywords to retrieve documents in an information system, for instance, a catalog or a
search engine. A popular form of keywords on the web are
tags which are directly visible and can be assigned by non-experts also. Index terms can consist of a word, phrase, or alphanumerical term. They are created by analyzing the document either manually with
subject indexing or automatically with
automatic indexing or more sophisticated methods of keyword extraction. Index terms can either come from a controlled vocabulary or be freely assigned.