Social Information Retrieval Systems: Emerging Technologies and Applications for Searching the Web Effectively

Citation

Doldi, L. (2008), "Social Information Retrieval Systems: Emerging Technologies and Applications for Searching the Web Effectively", Online Information Review, Vol. 32 No. 6, pp. 870-871. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520810924015

The popularity of the web has led to an enormous growth in the volume of information available online. The existing technology has made this information accessible to almost everyone. But the growth in volume does not necessarily mean growth of qualitative information, and especially it does not mean more efficiency in answering information needs. The searcher must learn to cope with the amount of information, to distinguish quality from the rest and finally to make searches more tailored to his needs.

Many technologies have been adopted to address these aspects and to solve the problems concerned with searching for a needle in a haystack; many studies have been conducted to try to provide the best methods to find relevant information for users needs in the shortest time. One aspect, which is receiving increasing attention, is the possibility of using the collective intelligence of other users, the search experience of those who have searched for the same information before, to improve the effectiveness of searching techniques. This new approach has been called social information retrieval and is the topic of this valuable book, which offers to all those involved in information retrieval an introduction to and insight into this emerging area.

The book is organised in six sections, each of them containing several articles written in the strictest scientific style: introduction and aim of work, background, methodology, findings and analysis, conclusion and future trends. Every article is correlated with a helpful bibliography, which could serve as starting point for deeper analysis.

The sections of the book deal with different aspects of social information retrieval systems: collaborative querying and techniques that support searching by using other users' experience (Section 1); possible methods for collaborative organisation and classification by constructing collaboratively metadata and classification schemes (Section 2); the use of social networks for information retrieval and social information‐seeking models (Sections 3 and 4). Some chapters are dedicated to social issues pertaining to social information retrieval, among other the problem of homophily, which could likely increase the fragmentation in society by isolating homogeneous groups from the rest of the virtual society. Finally, some chapters are dedicated to the wide‐ranging applicability of this new emerging field.

The book has been especially written for academics, researchers, librarians and students. Also, software developers could find in this volume a precious instrument for designing and implementing a new generation of information retrieval systems.