Information Retrieval System

Title of the Article: Modern Information Retrieval Chapter 1: Introduction
Author: Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Berthier Ribeiro-Neto
Publisher: Addison-Wesley-Longman Publishing co.
URL: http://sunsite.dcc.uchile.cl

Abstract of the Article:

Information retrieval basically deals with the representation, storage, organization and access to information items. The key goal of an IR system is to retrieve information which might be useful or relevant to the user.

The introduction and development of the World Wide Web to the general public has dramatically changed the interest in information retrieval.

The article discussed mainly the Chapter 1 of the book Modern Information Retrieval and referred to chapters that will further expound on the topics that were briefly discussed in the introduction.

Three things I learned from my Reading Assignment:

1. Information Retrieval Systems are tools that can be used to retrieve information which might be useful or relevant to the users.
2. Information retrieval used to be of interest mainly to librarians and information experts but with the introduction of the World Wide Web, the perception of people on information retrieval has dramatically changed.
3. Security, Privacy, Copyright and patent rights are some of the concerns / issues which has not been properly addressed in the use of the WEB.

Implications of the new things I learned to my work / to me as a person:

Information retrieval used to be limited thru doing researches in the library or interviewing resource persons. But with the development of computers and the emergence of the World Wide Web, it has become easier, faster and cheaper to gather information. We now have more resources of information since the Web made it possible for the public to post useful information But we have to be discriminate in deciding which of these information resources are the best source because only the user would know what information is relevant or important to him.