Functions of Information Retrieval System

ByN.Silambarasi

Dept of LISPondicherry University

The Information Retrieval System was coined by Calvin Mooers in 1952.

These information retrieval systems were, truly speaking, document retrieval system, since they were designed to retrieve information.

Information retrieval deals with storage, organization and access to text, as well as multimedia information resources.

Introduction

Information retrieval is the process ofsearching some collection of documents, usingthe term document in its widest sense, in orderto identify those documents which deal with aparticular subject. Any system that is designedto facilitate this literature searching maylegitimately be called an information retrievalsystem.

Information Retrieval (IR) deals with the representation, storage, organization of, and access to information items.

The representation and organization of information items should provide the user with easy access to the information in which he is interested.

Information Retrieval

Information retrieval is the science of searching for documents, for information within documents and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching relational databases and the World Wide Web.

Cont…

Information retrieval is interdisciplinary, based on computer science, mathematics, library science, information science, information architecture, cognitive psychology, linguistics, statistics and physics.

Cont…

According to Science and Technology Dictionary , information retrieval is the technique and process of searching, recovering, and interpreting information from large amounts of stored data.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia says information retrieval is recovery of information, especially in a database stored in a computer.

Definitions

The concept of information retrieval is broad and often employed in an imprecise meaning. It is used to denote systems designed to provide users or a group of users with information.

Salton /McGill (1983) gave this definition: An

information retrieval system is an informationsystem, that is, a system used to store items

ofinformation that need to be processed,searched, retrieved, and disseminated tovarious user populations

The document sub system The user sub system The searching/matching sub system

Components of information retrieval system

A writer present a set of ideas in a documentusing a set of concept.ISAR system serve to match the writer’s ideasexpressed in user’s requirement or demand forthose.ISAR system serve as a bridge between thegenerator of information and the users of thatInformation.

Purpose of ISAR

Essential issues in IR

RepresentationMatchingFunction Query

To identify the information (sources) relevant to the areas of interest of the target user’s community

To analyze the contents of the sources To represent the contents of the analyzed

sources in a way that will be suitable for matching user’s queries

Major functions of information retrieval system

To analyze user’s queries and to represent them in a form that will be suitable for matching with the database

To match the search statement with the stored database

To retrieve the information that is relevant To make necessary adjustments in the

system based on feedback from the users.

Located

Documents

Retrieval

Matching

FUNCTIONS OF IRSDocument

StoreContent Analysis

Descriptor

Standard Vocabulary

Users Query Analysis

Analyzed Queries

Feedback Modification

An information retrieval process begins when a user enters a query into the system. Queries are formal statements of information needs, for example search strings in web search engines.

Conclusion

Thank You