Information Literacy Skills and Information

Retrieval Techniques

Zaheer Ahmad
E-Library Expert
P&DD
 Sequence of Presentation
• Introduction
• Need and Importance
• Plan before searching
• Searching techniques
• Basic Search
• Advanced Search
• Google Vs Google Scholar
• Google Searching Techniques
• Evaluation

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 Introduction
• Information available and accessible online is massive. To make
maximum use of this information and to avoid frustration while
looking for relevant information, the user should have search
skills that include being familiar with search techniques.

3
 Information Literacy
• Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring
individuals to "recognize when information is needed
and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use
effectively the needed information.

4
 Information Retrieval
• Information retrieval (IR) is the activity or process of
obtaining information resources relevant to an
information need from a collection of information
resources.

5
 Vocabulary Control
An information retrieval system tries to match user queries with the stored documents
and retrieves those that match. In order to match the contents of the user requirements
with the contents of the stored documents, one must follow a vocabulary that is common
to both.

I.R.
Users Syste Indexers
m
Subject
Representati
on
Controlled
Vocabulary
Search
Expression

Indexing may be thought of as a process of labeling items for future reference.

Introduction to Information Retrieval 6
What is Web Search Engine and how it works
• A search engine is a searchable database of Internet files
collected by a computer program (called a crawler, robot,
worm, spider). Indexing is created from the collected
files, e.g., title, full text, size, URL, etc. There is no
selection criteria for the collection of files, though
evaluation can be applied to ranking schemes that return
the results of a query.
• A search engine have two major functions:
• Web crawling & Indexing
• Searching and providing answers

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Example of Library

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The Central Problem in IR
Information Seeker Authors

Concepts Concepts

Query Terms Document Terms

Do these represent the same concepts?

Why IR is hard? Because Language
is hard!!! 9
Introduction to Information Retrieval
 The Search Strategy
1. Known Item Search: 2. Search for 3. Search for Information
related to a problem or
Specific Information issue:
know about the existence of Fact: Most difficult, not exactly
of certain piece of known, variety of channel
information. Factual information and sources available,
influence of user’s problem

4. Exploratory Search: 5. Search to keep Up

User may want to know Major
to date in a specific
content of database or Categories of
field:
website, serendipity, Information
Search or scan journals
discovery of information Search
and databases regularly,
SDI, CAS

Introduction to Information Retrieval 10

 Before Start any Search
Three step process before start
1. Identify your need/concepts (Search Question)
Creating a good search question is half the battle
2. Make a list of search terms for each concept
3. Specify the logical relationships among your search
terms

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 Key Words Selection

Search for Health Implications of Water

Pollution
Keywords: ‘water’ ‘pollution’ ‘health’
Concepts: ‘Environmental Degradation’ or ‘agricultural
management’ or ‘health’
Synonyms: rivers, lakes, sea,’domestic water, ‘oil spills’,
chemical, biological, etc
Alt. Spells: none
Plurals: river(s), lake(s), disease(s)
Capitals: Name of a specific lake, disease, region
 Effective Online search strategies
• Boolean
• Phrase searching
• Field searching
• Domain Searching
• Setting Limits and Google Searching

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 Boolean Operators
Boolean operators allow you to join terms together, widen a search or
exclude terms from your search results. This means you can be more
precise in locating your information.
Boolean Operators at Emerald

Introduction to Information Retrieval 15

 Domain Searching
Searching Specific Domains:
Specific domains such .edu .gov and .com domains by typing your search term
and adding domain name such as
Labor Statistics site:gov
 Domain Searching with reference to a
country
Searching Specific Domains:
If you want to search a specific domain such as gov with reference to a specific country
you can also do that. For example if you want to search labor statistics from Pakistan
Government websites you c an do it by following way.
Labour Statistics site:gov.pk
Range Searching (Particular Items within specific
prices)

Stay within your budget by searching only for items within a number
range by putting a string .. between amounts. Like if you want to
search a sony tv with in price range of 7000 to 14000 from Pakistan.
Sony TV 7000..14000 site:com.pk
 Domain Searching with reference to a country
Searching Specific Domains:
If you want to search a specific domain such as gov with reference to a specific
country you can also do that. For example if you want to search labor statistics
from Pakistan Government websites you c an do it by following way.
Labour Statistics site:gov.pk
 Searching within a specific Website
Precede your query with site: if you know you want your answer from within a specific
site or type of site (.org, .edu). For example: site:edu or site:nytimes.com.

Pakistan site:nytimes.com
 Searching for particular Items within specific
prices
Stay within your budget by searching only for items within a number
range by putting a string .. between amounts. Like if you want to search
a sony tv with in price range of 7000 to 14000 from Pakistan.

Sony TV 7000..14000 site:com.pk

 Searching for specific File Type

Search for specific types of files, such as PDFs, PPTs, or XLS, by

adding filetype: and the 3-letter file abbreviation. The search syntax
should be:
Global Warming filetype:PPT
 Find Related Pages
Use the related: operator to find pages that have similar content by
typing related:followed by the website address. For instance, if you find
a website you like, try usingrelated:[insert URL] to locate similar
websites.
related:cricinfo.com
 Phrase Searching

It narrows your search down by searching for an

exact phrase or sentence. It is particularly useful
when searching for a title or a quotation. Usually
quotation marks are used to connect the words
together.
For example
“Towards a healthier Scotland”

Introduction to Information Retrieval 24

 Phrase and Field Searching

• Phrase Searching
– Instead of
• American English
– Try
• “American English” or (American English)
• Field Searching
Title, author, subject, keyword, all fields, etc.

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 Google and Google Scholar

•Google Scholar
•Subset of Internet
•Google Scholar focuses on the scholarly literature available on the Internet.  This includes,
articles, theses, books, abstracts, U.S. court opinions, and patents, found on the websites of
academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and more

•Google
•The entire indexed Internet 
•has a broader scope, and retrieves resources regardless of where online they come from. 
Resources in a Google search do not have to be scholarly, and do not have to be based on
research
 Some More Understanding about Google Search

• Setting limits in Google Searching

• Concept of Cached and Similar
 Judging What You Find
• Accuracy or credibility
• Author or authority
• Coverage or relevance
• Currency
• Objectivity or bias
• Use
THANK YOU

Any Questions?
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