Information retrieval

Certain aspects of science communication are of especial importance to information retrieval. The exponential growth of science raises many questions related to increasing specialization. "Quality identification" is suggested as a critical issue. All approaches to information retrieval share a common set of basic problem areas and solutions. Semantics and redundancy are key conceptual issues and give rise to difficulties more likely to be overcome by meticulous thesaurus compilation than by any sudden insight or "breakthrough." The effectiveness of present retrieval capabilities is largely unknown, though certain recent studies are illuminating. Presentation and display to the user are suggested as important approaches to problems of information digestibility.