Text Information Retrieval Systems (Library and Information Science) (Hardcover)

by Charles T. Meadow (Author)
Key Phrases: inverted file search, discriminator words, first data record, World Wide Web, Alta Vista, National Library of Medicine (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Book Description
Updated 3rd Edition of the Successful Series! --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description
Information retrieval of texts or abstracts - the processes of searching for and finding information in a database by use of a computer - is a communication process that often appears overly complex due to the technology involved. In this text the process is demystified and made accessible to all potential users. Although a knowledge of a higher order language (Pascal, C, or BASIC) and elementary algebra is useful, the general meaning of the text can be suitably appreciated with only a passing familiarity of information technology.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 294 pages
• Publisher: Academic Pr (March 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 012487410X
• ISBN-13: 978-0124874107
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,444,886 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not [much] about web searching, June 3, 2007

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Text Information Retrieval Systems, Third Edition (Library and Information Science) (Library and Information Science) (Hardcover)

The book takes the reader through a quick summary of the history of text IRS. Mostly, the readership is assumed to be librarians. Whose task is to search for information. Much of the book has a traditional feel, describing a discipline that strives to be precise and orderly. Most famously, with the imposition of a cataloging system, like the Dewey or Library of Congress methods.

The book also deals with recent changes. Most notably the Web. There is some consideration of the problem of dealing with and trying to classify web sites and web pages. But this is not a text on web search engines, per se. That has proved to be a vast economically important field. It's just not covered much here.

Important ideas are still explained, that are also germane to those readers involved in web searching. Like having an ontology of well defined terms. Or having a consistent metadata schema, as with the Dublin Core.

This book reminds me of texts in the early 90s, that covered SGML. Mostly for publishers. Just as the SGML-inspired HTML started taking off with the new Web. The SGML books were correct, but limited in their audience, while a much larger world of HTML was emerging. Likewise here. The ideas bubbling around the Dublin Core and ontologies are really not being driven by traditional printed texts, or even the databases that exist, but are not on the web.