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The secrets of online document retrieval – information revolution and its complexities
Men have been through ages, encountering difficulty in storing accessible information in one form or the other. Enormous amount of information on everything is available around us but access to the information requires replication of efforts in various forms like journals, books, encyclopedias and now, recently computers. Libraries have been the places to amass information, from time immemorial but gaining access of the information is arduous, since it includes locating the right information from the right book. This process is inclusive of cataloging and efficient administration that is laborious, on the part of the authorities.

Computers – key to storing data.

The arrival of the magic machine, computer has helped men immensely in storing information and data on any given subject. After the inception of computers in every field, document retrieval systems have become the primary focus. Information storage and retrieval systems were revolutionized with the invention of computers.

Documents are retrieved entirely by employing the use of titles or keywords, through document retrieval systems. Any word frequently used in the document can aid the search and retrieval of documents. Everyone associated with computers are striving to find an effective mode of information retrieval from various databases.

Information retrieval – a complex process:

The widespread use of computers in all fields was considered the key to paperless offices, with the option of storing enormous data in it. The popularity of internet was the key to knowledge retrieval from various sources. Automatic retrieval strategy online was devised to constitute a primary source of extracting relevant information online and discarding the non-relevant ones.

Information retrieval, online can be a very simple process at the superficial level. Search engines play a prominent role in making the information available to the masses. A person, using the search engines, types a query and the information stored in the databases is retrieved by him within a click of a button on the keyboard. Complexity of the matter is apparent from the fact that though the information in enormous amount is obtained, location of the right information necessitates the user to skim and scan through many documents, which is indeed difficult.

Online information or document retrieval is a complex process in terms of the relevance of the information that is presented to the user. The computer can aid accessing information on a particular subject but it may not always gather information that is ‘relevant’ to the user. The problem is the inability of a computer, however complex to decode and relate the information that is perfect and relevant to the user’s need. This scenario might change in the coming years but currently the process in impracticable.

Characterization:

Characterization indicates the scheme employed, when crafting a document. The document is designed to be available to the user, when a query, pertaining to the document is attempted by the user. Human indexers play a prominent role in characterizing documents to suit speedy retrieval of documents online. A human indexer, analyses the array of terms that can be used possibly by a user to retrieve a document that is wrought by the human indexer. Indexers employ and spread the terms across the entire document to suit the user’s need. Inadvertently he dictates the nature of the queries that pertain to the document. This proves to be detrimental with a machine like computer. With reference to the computers, the document’s relevance to a particular query needs an effective model, which quantifies the relevance of documents and the query.

Phases of online document retrieval:

The first phase is input in which the documents are stored, inclusive of ‘document representatives’. Document representatives are the list of words that are considered significant and relevant to the document, to evince a response to a query posed by the user through information retrieval systems. Failing to find the right information, the users might resort to using different terms, to retrieve the document online, sometimes. This might prove useful and detrimental depending on the characterization of the document. The next process is the classification and structuring of the information for information or document retrieval. This process is the proper retrieval function, wherein the query is responded to with information.

The final process is the process, which retrieves the documents for the user.
Measures of efficacy:

Efficiency of the document retrieval or information retrieval systems online is measured by two factors, the relevance of information and the volume of information available online. To retrieve a document online, people have always used natural language and the natural language processing technique can not be efficacious completely with computer that processes information in machine language. Analysis and deduction of information is done by humans, through reading and if this process is duplicated in the computers, the relevance of the information and the volume of information on a particular subject can be improved. Research and development units are functioning vigorously to figure out a novel method, to improve the performance of online document retrieval systems, to aid a sophisticated and improved access to information and knowledge for humans.

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