Reading Notes - Unit 1

Finding Out About Section 1.1 Notes:

• This chapter was a nice start the course.  It provided a larger overview of what we're doing here.  Having just come from Human Information Processing with Dr. Hirtle, this was a nice bridge.  
• The FOA conversation loop was a perfect model for what goes on in a conversation between two people.
• They go on to show the model a search engine and it really showed how far we have to come.

Information Retrieval  Section 1.1 - 1.2 Notes:

• Section 1.1 is a basic introduction to the topic talking mostly about search engines but it does briefly touch on local search.
• Figure 1.1 is nice model for what a search engine is doing.
• They then go on to talk about systems and efficiency and effectiveness 

Modern Information Retrieval Sections 1.1 - 1.4 Notes:

• Again, a basic introduction to the topic, with a great discussion of ancient libraries and 
• Section 1.2-1.3 are a bit more CS heavy than the other readings but provide a concrete, high level model that I feel is the best of the three readings.
• Section 1.3 introduces the idea of Ranking as the current best way to search
• Section 1.4 has a brief history of the web and web search moving onto the modern era.