Description
Book SynopsisAn information retrieval (IR) system is designed to analyse, process and store sources of information and retrieve those that match a particular user's requirements. A bewildering range of techniques is now available to the information professional attempting to successfully retrieve information. It is recognized that today's information professionals need to concentrate their efforts on learning the techniques of computerized IR. However, it is this book's contention that it also benefits them to learn the theory, techniques and tools that constitute the traditional approaches to the organization and processing of information. In fact much of this knowledge may still be applicable in the storage and retrieval of electronic information in digital library environments. The fully revised third edition of this highly regarded textbook has been thoroughly updated to incorporate major changes in this rapidly expanding field since the second edition in 2004, and a complete new chapter on citation indexing has been added. Unique in its scope, the book covers the whole spectrum of information storage and retrieval, including: users of IR and IR options; database technology; bibliographic formats; cataloguing and metadata; subject analysis and representation; automatic indexing and file organization; vocabulary control; abstracts and indexing; searching and retrieval; user-centred models of IR and user interfaces; evaluation of IR systems and evaluation experiments; online and CD-ROM IR; multimedia IR; hypertext and mark-up languages; web IR; intelligent IR; natural language processing and its applications in IR; citation analysis and IR; IR in digital libraries; and trends in IR research. Illustrated with many examples and comprehensively referenced for an international audience, this is an indispensable textbook for students of library and information studies. It is also an invaluable aid for information practitioners wishing to brush up on their skills and keep up to date with the latest techniques.
Trade Review"The full gamut of information is covered … The text will be of great use to information practitioners to review their IR knowledge, and bring it up-to-date in many areas."
-- Australian Academic & Research Libraries
"Chowdhury provides a good understanding of where much of our current systems have come from … this book would be a good resource for a basic information retrieval course."
-- College & Research Libraries
"For this third edition of a text for undergraduate and graduate students of library and information science, Chowdhury ... incorporates changes in the field since 2004 and provides a new chapter on citation indexing. The book is written from a relatively non-technical perspective, covering the spectrum of information storage and retrieval in a way that's relevant to an international readership."
-- SciTech Book News
Table of Contents1. Basic concepts of information retrieval systems
- Introduction
- Features of an information retrieval system
- Elements of an information retrieval system
- Kinds of information retrieval systems
- Design issues
- Discussion
- References
2. Database technology
- Introduction
- Data
- The database
- Kinds of databases
- Database technology
- The development of databases in an information retrieval environment
- Discussion
- References
3. Bibliographic formats
- Introduction
- Bibliographic records
- ISO 2709: Format for bibliographic information interchange
- MARC format
- UNIMARC format
- The Common Communication Format
- Discussion
- References
4. Cataloguing and metadata
- Introduction
- Cataloguing
- Metadata
- Discussion
- References
5. Subject analysis and representation
- Introduction
- Classification
- Types of bibliographic classification schemes
- Major library classification schemes
- Classification of electronic resources
- Subject analysis
- Manual indexing
- Theory of indexing
- Discussion
- References
6. Automatic indexing and file organization
- Introduction
- The process of indexing
- Automatic classification
- Index file organization
- Inverted file
- Sequential access
- Alternative text retrieval structures
- Discussion
- References
7. Vocabulary control
- Introduction
- Controlled vs natural indexing
- Vocabulary control tools
- Thesauri
- Criteria for evaluating a thesaurus
- Use of thesauri in online information retrieval
- Discussion
- References
8. Abstracts and abstracting
- Introduction
- Types of abstract
- Qualities of abstracts
- Uses of abstracts
- The art of abstracting
- Automatic abstracting
- Recent works on text summarization
- Discussion
- References
9. Searching and retrieval
- Introduction
- The search strategy and its prerequisites
- The pre-search interview
- The searching process
- Retrieval models
- Alternative information retrieval models
- Search facilities offered by most text retrieval systems
- Discussion
- References
10. Users of information retrieval
- Introduction
- Users and their nature
- Types of information needs
- Information needs in different areas of activity
- Information-seeking behaviour of users
- What we need to know about users
- User studies
- Possible sources of information about users
- Discussion
- References
11. User-centred models of information retrieval
- Introduction
- Information seeking
- Human information behaviour models
- User-centred information search models
- Discussion
- References
12. User interfaces
- Introduction
- The four-phase framework for interface design
- Information seeking and user interfaces
- User interfaces and visualization
- User interfaces of some information retrieval systems
- Discussion
- References
13. Evaluation of information retrieval systems
- Introduction
- The purpose of evaluation
- Evaluation criteria
- The steps of evaluation
- Discussion
- References
14. Evaluation experiments
- Introduction
- The Cranfield tests
- MEDLARS
- The SMART retrieval experiment
- The STAIRS project
- Limitations of early evaluation studies
- TREC
- Discussion
- References
15. Online and CD-ROM information retrieval
- Introduction
- Online searching
- CD-ROM databases
- Discussion
- References
16. Multimedia information retrieval
- Introduction
- Multimedia information retrieval systems
- Standards
- Discussion
- References
17. Hypertext and markup languages
- Introduction
- Hypertext
- Markup languages
- Discussion
- References
18. Web information retrieval
- Introduction
- Traditional vs web information retrieval
- Web information: volume and growth
- Web information retrieval: issues and challenges
- Access to information on the web: the tools
- Economic aspects of web information and search engines
- Deciding which pages to return
- Search engine optimization
- Web information retrieval: evaluation studies
- Information seeking on the web
- Discussion
- References
19. Natural language processing and information retrieval
- Introduction
- Natural language understanding
- Syntactic analysis
- Semantic analysis
- Pragmatic knowledge
- Discussion
- References
20. Natural language processing applications in information retrieval
- Introduction
- Cross-language information retrieval
- Machine translation
- Question answering systems
- Text mining
- Information extraction
- Discussion
- References
21. Citation analysis and information retrieval
- Introduction
- Bibliometrics, scientometrics and webometrics
- Citation indexes and information retrieval
- Discussion
- References
22. Information retrieval in digital libraries
- Introduction
- Information resources in digital libraries
- The basic design of a digital library
- Interoperability
- Common features of digital libraries
- Information retrieval features of selected digital libraries
- Problems and prospects
- Discussion
- References
23. Trends in information retrieval
- Introduction
- Evaluation of information retrieval systems
- Developments related to the input subsystem
- Searching and retrieval
- User studies and user modelling
- User interfaces
- Information retrieval standards and protocols
- Information retrieval in the context of web and digital libraries
- Evaluation of natural language processing systems
- Machine translation
- Conclusions
- References
