Search Engines: Information Retrieval in Practice (Hardcover)

~ Bruce Croft (Author), (Author), Trevor Strohman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

KEY BENEFIT: Written by a leader in the field of information retrieval, this text provides the background and tools needed to evaluate, compare and modify search engines. KEY TOPICS: Coverage of the underlying IR and mathematical models reinforce key concepts. Numerous programming exercises make extensive use of Galago, a Java-based open source search engine. MARKET: A valuable tool for search engine and information retrieval professionals.

About the Author

W. Bruce Croft is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, which he joined in 1979. In 1992, he became the Director of the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval (CIIR), which combines basic research with technology transfer to a variety of government and industry partners. He has published more than 180 articles related to information retrieval. Dr. Croft was elected a Fellow of ACM in 1997, received the Research Award from the American Society for Information Science and Technology in 2000, and received the Gerard Salton Award from the ACM Special Interest Group in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) in 2003.

Donald Metzler is a Research Scientist in the Search and Computational Advertising group at Yahoo! Research in Santa Clara, CA. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in 2007. During his graduate studies he was awarded a Microsoft Live Labs Graduate Fellowship. His research interests include formal information retrieval models, web search, advertising, and machine learning.

Trevor Strohman is a software engineer in the Google search quality division. His Ph.D., from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, focused on high-performance text retrieval systems that are easily adaptable to fit specific retrieval applications. He has published papers and presented a tutorial at the top information retrieval conference, SIGIR. He is the creator of the Galago search engine, and the primary developer of the Indri search engine (www.lemurproject.org/indri). He has ten years of professional software development experience, including desktop, server, and web applications.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 552 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley; 1 edition (February 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0136072240
• ISBN-13: 978-0136072249
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #188,493 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #23 in

  Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Library & Information Science > Library Management

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best IR textbook I have ever used, May 12, 2009

By	Jonathan Abourbih "jonbc" (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is probably one of the best IR textbooks I have seen. I used a pre-release edition for a text technologies course at the University of Edinburgh this year. The explanations are clear and interesting, the examples are compelling, and the authors' style is engaging. I'd recommend this book for any course on information retrieval.

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's just amazing., June 18, 2009

By	David Rhodes "TreyTable - The Guru of Games" (Erie, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is easily one of the best books I never read all the way through, but kept my attention long enough for the store manager to have to physically remove me from the bookstore cos I didn't have the cash to buy it. The library is in another building, sir. That's okay, I'm not a student here anyway. Is Bruce Croft related to Lara Croft?