Information Retrieval Software

Information retrieval applications search through large quantities of data to provide information in response to the users request. The information can be retrieved from individual machines, networks of machines or from the Internet. Information retrieval software is able to search through all kinds of content from file contents, to email folders, to databases and image or audio tags to find the selected content. Specific information retrieval packages can search through large volumes of data at very high capacity, and also search through many more data sources than traditional search technologies so that the quality of the retrieved information is considerably higher.

Another advantage of information retrieval software is the ability to search for information within a wide variety of file types, such as PDF or MDB that would not be supported by more traditional searching technologies such as those intergraded into the Windows operating system. Similarly the ability to search within email folders and within email attachments, as well as ICQ message logs means data is more readily available from a larger source base. This also means various sources of information can be consolidated into one source for easy access.

The primary market for information retrieval applications has been medium to large companies, working within a networked environment. The ability to search for files from various machines and within various formats means the reduction of data redundancy, improving the efficiency of the organisations computer systems and reducing operating costs. Indeed, the pricing strategy and training required (for the complex search ‘language’) prohibited smaller organisations and home users from taking advantage of these kinds of applications until relatively recently. Home computers are now commonplace and users who are not particularly technically minded are used to using online search engines to return results of interest (i.e. search language is more user-intuitive than it was before).

Internet search engines during the mid-to-late 1990’s used to compete on the number of results that were returned from a particular search term and the speed that the results were returned. Today, users are more interested in the quality of the results, rather than having hundreds of irrelevant pages of information to sift through. For example, Google uses its ‘page-rank’ algorithm to decide which results are most relevant for a particular keyword, and the most relevant results are displayed first in the list. Moving on further, sites like amazon.com make suggestions of books and CD’s that may be of interest to you, based on your past product searches. This kind of ‘personal recommendation’ is seen to be much more likely to result in sales. Finding these associated products, or associated search information is the main focus of information retrieval software, almost like finding synonyms in a thesaurus, it finds alternative but related information.

Once information has been found for the search term, the next stage is to elicit key pieces of data in order to solve the initial query or premise. Some search retrieval software is able to display results in the form of a concept map, with the relationships between key information shown in an easily understood pictorial representation. Similarly, the user is able to select key concepts to drill-down for more in-depth information on that particular topic. Users can also jump to the referenced material or documents easily, making referencing a simple procedure.

Information retrieval software is also able to automate repetitive processes easily. For example an organisation that checks its product prices against its competitors on the internet regularly could set the information retrieval software to automatically search the 20 competitors on a daily basis, ensuring pricing remains competitive. This will also save the company time and expense since the report can be prepared for a certain time every day, without any further involvement from members of staff. Hantelbank

Overall, the main pull of information retrieval software is that ability to identify key concepts within search themes and to put these into a single easily accessible resource for users to utilise.