Due to rapid evolutionary changes in how individuals search, retrieve and access web‐based information, and because of a growing development in information retrieval (techniques and applications), Next Generation Search Engines seeks to transfer new research from advanced computer sciences and information science to the design of new search engines (SEs).
It includes 20 chapters distributed under four foundational sections. Section 1 (Indexation, Chapters 1‐5) deals with issues beyond the basic centralised static IR systems. Underscoring the advanced, decentralized, dynamic and large‐scale search environment of the Web, this section what lies behind the searching of plentiful and rapidly increasing information resources. It addresses how the index of a web‐based SE organises the information contained in its documents, how high quality metadata can contribute to the information trade‐offs or interoperability in e‐sciences as a platform for further advancements, how cross‐lingual search of photo databases may lead to accessing more relevant images, and how fuzzy ontologies can enhance the quality of results in a web IR system.
As a step towards better IR by SEs, Section 2 (Data Mining for Information Retrieval, Chapters 6‐9) explores how data mining‐related methods like semantic and discourse annotations, linguistic and semantic modeling and opinion mining can alleviate some shortcomings along the way to more efficiently and intelligently meeting users' information needs.
Section 3 (Interface, Chapters 10‐17), taking a human‐centred and nondeterministic approach, generally is a joint endeavor to enhance users' interventions and control of their searching process through much more personalisation, customisation, humanisation and less rigidity, which in turn can improve interactability, simplicity and especially IR effectiveness.
Section 4 (Evaluation, Chapters 18‐20) examines the performance appraisal of SEs from different approaches and reminds us that the evaluative outlook of the domain should be altered from a technical or quantitative approach to a combination of technical and social dimensions by which a more wide‐ranging evaluation, and so better mediation between users and content, can be achieved.
This work is abundant in innovative ideas, new concepts, and real‐world practices. The realisation or implementation of the perspectives and models included in the book may result in real advances and substantive changes in information markets. Advanced students, academics and researchers, as well as knowledge workers, information and computer scientists and web designers, can benefit from reading this work.
