Page 109 - DLIS405_INFORMATION_STORAGE_AND_RETRIEVAL

Information Storage and Retrieval

Notes Epistemological Issues

Most research about relevance in information retrieval in recent years have implicitly assumed that
the users evaluation of the output a given system should be used to increase “relevance” output. An
alternative strategy would be to use journal impact factor to rank output and thus base relevance on
expert evaluations.
Other strategies, such as including diversity of the search results, may be used as well. The important
thing to recognize is, however, that relevance is fundamentally a question of epistemology, not
psychology. (Peoples’ psychology reflects certain epistemological influences).

Give a brief report on—Theory and Implementation of Information Storage and
Retrieval system.

10.6 Online Searching Basics; Library Databases; Web Sites

Effective searching in web-based databases depends on how well your search is formulated. Usually
at least two types of searches can be performed: subject and keyword. Most online searches tend to
default to the keyword variety. Database users have to read onscreen directions to see how, or if,
subject and keyword searches are differentiated.
When you type in a keyword search in a database, you are instructing the search mechanism to
analyze every eligible document in its inventory, and return to you only the ones that include all
the relevant terms you typed in. Since the computer will only retrieve articles containing all of the
significant terms that you type in, good researchers must choose their terms well. Which “key”
words will the authors of documents be likely to use when writing on a certain topic? What terms,
if any, have database designers decided to formalize into an official list of searchable key words? It
pays to take a few minutes before beginning your search to organize it. Read onscreen directions to
help optimize your research strategies. Using too many terms, or too few, will too often retrieve
nothing useful.
Analyze your search strategy frequently. As necessary, narrow the search by deleting extraneous
terms, or broaden it by adding appropriate ones, to get the best results. Using synonyms or related
terms in one or a series of keyword inquiries will help to make searches more effective.
To perform a subject search, database searchers usually have to use another interface of the database
other than the keyword approach. This subject connection to database contents would allow searches
by concept rather than by individual words.

Keyword Searching and Boolean Operators

If you were writing a paper asserting, for example, that “marijuana use in California should not be
legal”, you might achieve good results with a keyword search. Keyword searching allows you to
“customize” your searches by combining more terms than a less-flexible subject search could do. Use
only the key words (important words; words that have substance and meaning) in the thesis (such as
marijuana, California, and legal in the example above) and type them in. Discard meaningless words
such as in, should, not, and be, since they are unimportant for retrieving information in the search.
Such insignificant terms are called stopwords.

104 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY