Modern Information Retrieval : A Brief Overview

TLDR

Information Retrieval emerged in the 1950s to enable efficient storage and retrieval of large data collections, has matured over four decades, and is now widely used by diverse users. This article provides a concise overview of key advances and the current state of the art in Information Retrieval.

Abstract

For thousands of years people have realized the importance of archiving and finding information. With the advent of computers, it became possible to store large amounts of information; and finding useful information from such collections became a necessity. The field of Information Retrieval (IR) was born in the 1950s out of this necessity. Over the last forty years, the field has matured considerably. Several IR systems are used on an everyday basis by a wide variety of users. This article is a brief overview of the key advances in the field of Information Retrieval, and a description of where the state-of-the-art is at in the field.