Customer Reviews

Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval

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This one is a bit more on the info science side of things, but is quite good. It is an intro to IR which, like IO, can be a tricky subject to talk about. I thought the author did quite well and the use of diagrams when talking about IR algorithms was a big plus.
There are some chapters that are not as relevant as others, but overall, a great text.

This textbook is really awful. It is the required text for one of my library & information science courses. In my class evaluation at the end of the semester, I plan on strongly recommending that they look into a different text for the course. It is poorly written, poorly edited, and difficult to understand. Concepts are discussed with little to no explanation. The author relies heavily on "bullet point"-type lists, which seem more like space filler than useful information. The abstracts and abstracting chapter, while easier to understand than some of the other chapters, is lacking any illustrative examples. The section on automatic abstracting, in particular, should have been supplemented by some examples of automatic abstracts, so readers have a clear idea of what automatic abstracting has to offer and what its deficiencies are. Listing 5-6 definitions of abstracting is not nearly as helpful as some solid, concrete examples would be. For an introductory text, the author uses language that is too technical and doesn't even try to explain it. Much of the text is very repetitive. It is a bad combination of being too basic in parts and too advanced in other parts; it never finds the right balance.

Overall, reading this book is painful, not only because it isn't engaging or well-written but because I don't feel like I actually learned anything after reading a chapter. If anything, I sometimes feel more confused.

So far, it seems to be helpful for the class it was required for. $90.00 for a paperback book is really sad, though.