1st Reading Assignment

Topic: Information Retrieval

"Information discovery and retrieval tools"

by: Michael T. Frame

Source:

Frame, Michael T. “Information discovery and retrieval tools” Information Services & Use

24.4 (2004) : 187-193. EBSCOHost. EBSCOHost Connection. 01 July 2009

http://search.ebscohost.com/.

Exact URL of the article:

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=104&sid=7136e648-868b-4f35-b857-77d4641f3ed5%40sessionmgr2&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZlJnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#db=ehh&AN=16872295

EBSCOHost is part of the online database subscription of the Ateneo de Manila University, from where I viewed and downloaded the article. You might not be able to access the full-text version if you do not have the required subscriptions.

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Abstract:

In 2004 it was estimated that 10 billion web pages exist on the World Wide Web. With that huge number, it is very evident why users particularly those who have casual knowledge in using the Internet find it very difficult to search and retrieve relevant and accurate information. One of the many solutions to this problem is the effective use of different search engines available in the web. This article focuses on how search engines works, as well as enumerating different features and capabilities of the tool. Tips on how web developers and creators can improve the discovery of their web content were also discussed. One of the aims of this discussion is to prevent the web developers in doing intentional tricks such as search engine spamming, which will only brought problem to web searches of users. Furthermore, various terminologies such as SPAM, metatags, and spidering methodology were also introduced along with the presentation of simple search techniques for Internet users. All of this was provided to minimize the problem of populated search results as well as improve the search experiences and information retrieval of World Wide Web users.

Reflections:

I think that the article that I selected actually help me to be familiarized with some of the various terminologies related to web search and retrieval. What is interesting about this article is that it gives us a more detailed look on search engines, which is one of the tools use in information retrieval. Yes, we do use google, yahoo, altavista, askjeeves, etc practically all the time. But do we know what is happening behind the search? probably not.

We casual Internet users might find this question uninteresting or irrelevant since what we ultimately want is to search the web and retrieve the information we need. But after reading the article and learning the discussions on spam, metatags, a search engine model and how a search engine actually sees a search, it made me realize the importance of acquiring technical knowledge on web retrieval tools and also how it can actually help casual users in their search and retrieval experience.

We actually do not need to be technical expert on this field. Being able to distinguish the difference of a spam page to an actual relevant web page is already a big leap for all of us.

Three things I learned from the article:

1. Honestly, my knowledge on SPAM is very limited. Usually I encounter SPAM on electronic mails which take form into different advertising and promotional messages. After reading the article, I learned that there are actually SPAM in web pages and that web developers are actually using it to increase the number of hits on their page. This is a tricky way to improve Internet Business. As well all know the number of hits usually gives a site more popularity and thus more revenues. This is one of the primary reasons why we always encounter a number of irrelevant results during a web search.

2. How search engine works and its different features and capabilities that can be use to retrieve the right information. Some of the features are the use of case sensitive and insensitive searching, Boolean search capabilities, result weighting feature, simple search interface, use of remote indexing, etc.

   Today, Internet users are provided with so many search engines and that selecting the effective one becomes a problem. But if we take into account these features and capabilities, we will surely be successful in choosing the right one.

   
   

3. Importance of metatags and why it should be embedded in an HTML document. I also learned a different kind of metatag, called “Common name”. It is a custom meta-tag that can actually help further narrow an already narrowed search results.

Conclusions:

This article focuses more on the tools and terminologies important in Information Retrieval and not directly on techniques that can be utilized to improve one’s search. However, upon reading the article, readers will certainly know how to effectively use search engines and select which tool to use based on the presence of different features and capabilities. In the end, all this information will surely lead the user to successful Internet Retrieval.