Download Understanding Information Retrieval Systems: Storage, Retrieval, and Complexities and more Exercises Business Management and Analysis in PDF only on Docsity! 45 Information Retrieval An information retrieval system consists of a set of procedures for storing items in a file in an organized way, so that they can be found in the future by people who are interested. A corollary to the definition is that items will not be located by someone who is not interested in their contents. The items might be facts, words, sentences, or documents. The file is constantly updated by the addition of new or more reliable information and by deletion of obsolete, incorrect, or unreliable information. Retrieval systems are necessary whenever data is stored and the exact requirements and timing of its ultimate uses are not known. The ease of defining information retrieval does not mean that the underlying theory and the problems with which it is concerned are simple ones. Quite the converse is true. Some of the most complex problems which face logicians, scientists, and linguists today are information retrieval problems. The statement of the problem is simple, but its solution is complex. Although tremendous research activity in the field of information retrieval during the past ten years has resulted in the publication of many papers treating the problem in various professional journals, unfortunately, nearly all this activity has been by scientists and operations research specialists. Most of these papers are too technical to be of value Most of these papers are too technical to be of value to the businessman. The subject, of course, has no been completely ignored in business publications. Several articles have appeared ha were very enthusiastic about the long range potential of information retrieval for business problem. A 1960 Fortune magazine article even suggested that information retrieval in 1960 occupied the same position as EDP did in 1950. It is expected that by 1965 expenditures in the United States for information retrieval equipment would jump to $100 million a year (from a level of $2 million a year) and would double every three years thereafter. Progress in the technical development and large scale marketing of information retrieval systems has proceeded at a slower rate, and its ultimate impact appears to be more limited, than anticipated above. In our opinion, however, the nature of information retrieval problems and the tools for resolving them are sufficiently important that they should be understood by businessmen. This chapter therefore has two objectives: docsity.com
