Physics
Course in Information Retrieval

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL
PHYSICS

 

What should you know of the information retrieval?

 Before starting searching for information - define the subject of your searches.Try to formulate the aim of your searches in the clear and concise words or phrases. Choose the terms of frequent occurrence in the scientific literature, proffesional dictionaries or encyclopaedias. These terms will work as the keywords in the search process and you will use them when asking the search systems (such like library catalogues, computer databases, on-line catalogues of other libraries, search engines) for the literature you need for your researches.

It is the best if your keywords are noun phrases or adjectival expressions. Try to find a few different specialistic terms covering your search topic. This is important because the computer systems usually have their own keyword dictionaries and they do not always cover each other. It can happen when using some keywords you will get a wide number of relevant files in one system and a negative answer in the another system.When the answer you get is not satysfying (maybe the database does not contain so many relevant papers) it does not mean that there are no papers matching your search enquiry in the library (in a database, www files) but that the terms previously formulated have not been found and you have to modify or alter your search question. You have to remember also of rather rigid rules in the card catalogue and flexibility of the computer databases. If you work with the card catalogue - first check if your terms are in "The Subject Index for the Systematic Catalogue" or are input into the systematic catalogue scheme. The detailed instructions, how to use the catalogues, you will find in the systematic catalogue.

Remember of using synonyms, broader or narrower terms and terms related to the descriptors. It is important because some index systems generalise the document contents, the others specify them. Check if the system has a thesaurus - a dictionary of terms used as the keywords. If it has, use it necessarily, the thesaurus terms will help you to get all papers needed.
Primarily try to find the most recent publications and after that search gradually for the earlier ones (your referring to the previous literature depends on a subject and its chronological scope).

If you want to collect the complete literature on given subject you can not be limited to searching just for books, you must find as well monographs as journal articles or netbase electronic data (lectures, pre-prints, conference materials).

Remember that when you are searching for information, you are learning about the system language, you can always modify your question term (enquiry) adjusting it to the system terminology.

Notice that most of the computer search systems (catalogue or bibliographical data bases) offer you a few stages of information retrieval process:

No matter which one of these ways you will choose, the results will stay the same. You have always the possibility to adjust the search method to your skills, for the searches to be conducted easily and quickly. Do not forget you can change the search stage at every step of your work.

Your enquiry can be very simple (e.g. one-word descriptor) but you can also link words in a search strategy by using the logic operators, which will express the logic relationships between the individual expressions. The use of these operators is significant if you think of the efficiency of information search, the more information you will key in, the greater possibility to get relevant papers - important from the essential point of view.
The operators commonly used are: AND, OR and NOT (some systems use also graphic marks such as:
+, *, -). You can use them when the search systems strategies provide you with the possibility of searching for a product, an union and a complement of sets.

  1. a product - A and B - a set containing both: A element and B element at the same time;
  2. an union - A or B - a set containing A element or B element;
  3. a complement - A and not B, A except B - a set of answers not containing a term wanted.
We often use also the context operators e.g.:
    A adj B - when we want A and B terms to appear in a sentence one by one;
    A with B - when A and B terms are in one sentence but not exactly one by one;
    A same B - when A and B terms are in the same paragraph.

Your enquiry will be always translated by a system in its communication language and matched against elements of its files. In reply you will get the bibliographical descriptions of the papers fulfilling the prescribed conditions.

 

Notice that the terminals (OPAC-s) available in the catalogue hall of the Main Library (first floor) contain besides the catalogue database of our library also another bibliographical data bases, very helpful in searching for information, such like: "Polish National Bibliography" where you can find descriptions of books printed in Poland, or "The Polish Bibliography of Journal Contents" (where you can search for journal articles), SYMPO. Thanks to the computer networks, our library is also able to make the holdings of other libraries and information services available to you. If you want to view the databases of other libraries (not only Polish) use the University Library home pages http:/www.bu.uni.torun.pl/ links and you will find the references to:

Page elaborated by: Dominika Czyzak

Your comments        Subject Librarians        Webmaster        Polish Version        Update : March 1999