SOME BASIC COMMENTS ON RETRIEVAL TESTING

To test is not to evaluate. Tests reveal to what extend a retrieval system performs in some specific way; what value is or should he put upon such performance is another matter altogether. Clearly one should test only such performance as is necessary to the aim of the system, because one cannot test everything. Thus we must first decide what is the aim of the system, then test to find how well it achieves this aim. These matters can be examined and discussed usefully without going into profound matters such as man's place in the universe, the nature of unrecorded knowledge, the library's place in next year's budget, or whether some individual user's knowledge is changed to his individual satisfaction.