Discussion of the study of interactive information retrieval (IR) at the Text Retrieval Conferences (TREC) focuses on summaries of the Interactive Track at each conference. Describes evolution of the track, which has changed from comparing human-machine systems with fully automatic systems to comparing interactive systems that focus on the search…

Feasibility study findings indicate that a potential reduction in drudgery for the scholar may be obtained through a combination of heretofore divergent solutions to the increasingly critical problem of how researchers will interface with computers for an efficient and effective review of the literature. Presently existing computer software…

Reviews the development of research and evaluation in information retrieval. Highlights include the Cranfield projects concerning recall and precision, the Medlars experiment that focused on relevance, TREC (Text Retrieval Conference), evaluation versus understanding, interface versus functionality, document length, and terms and user interaction.…