In the forty years since I started working in the field, and indeed for some years before that (almost since Calvin Mooers coined the term information storage and retrieval in the 1950s), there have been a significant number of books on information retrieval. Even if we ignore the more specialist research monographs and the ‘readers’ of previously published papers, I can find on my shelves or in my mental library many books that attempt (probably with the IR student in mind) to construct a coherent and systematic way of defining and presenting information retrieval as a field of study and of application.
Often such a book is the work of a single author, or perhaps a pair working together. Such works can clearly have an advantage in respect of coherence; the field is necessarily presented from a single viewpoint. On the other hand, they can also suffer for the same reason. The IR field is rich (more so now than it has ever been), and it is difficult within a single viewpoint to do justice to this richness. Readers, on the other hand, have to be constructed out of the materials to hand: the published papers, each of which has taken its own view, probably with a much narrower field of vision, and different from that of the other chosen papers.
This book is an essential reference to cutting-edge issues and future directions in information retrieval
Information retrieval (IR) can be defined as the process of representing, managing, searching, retrieving, and presenting information. Good IR involves understanding information needs and interests, developing an effective search technique, system, presentation, distribution and delivery. The increased use of the Web and wider availability of information in this environment led to the development of Web search engines. This change has brought fresh challenges to a wider variety of users’ needs, tasks, and types of information.
Today, search engines are seen in enterprises, on laptops, in individual websites, in library catalogues, and elsewhere. Information Retrieval: Searching in the 21st Century focuses on core concepts, and current trends in the field.
This book focuses on:
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Information Retrieval Models
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User-centred Evaluation of Information Retrieval Systems
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Multimedia Resource Discovery
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Image Users’ Needs and Searching Behaviour
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Web Information Retrieval
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Mobile Search
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Context and Information Retrieval
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Text Categorisation and Genre in Information Retrieval
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Semantic Search
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The Role of Natural Language Processing in Information Retrieval: Search for Meaning and Structure
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Cross-language Information Retrieval
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Performance Issues in Parallel Computing for Information Retrieval
This book is an invaluable reference for graduate students on IR courses or courses in related disciplines (e.g. computer science, information science, human-computer interaction, and knowledge management), academic and industrial researchers, and industrial personnel tracking information search technology developments to understand the business implications. Intermediate-advanced level undergraduate students on IR or related courses will also find this text insightful. Chapters are supplemented with exercises to stimulate further thinking.
