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Search Basics

Talking about an information retrieval (IR) technology such as Search Kit requires some terms and notions that may be unfamiliar to you. In this chapter you learn about these. Along the way, you learn that the workflow in an IR system isn’t very different from the process of getting information from your local library.

If you understand such terms as corpus, text extraction, inverted index, query, Boolean search, and relevance ranking, you can skip this chapter and begin with “Search Kit Concepts.”

This chapter describes information retrieval as a three-step process:

1. Establishing a suitable source to search

2. Formulating a query

3. Invoking a search and providing results

This chapter steps you through a search workflow using a library metaphor, relating it to a generic computer-based IR system with occasional mention of Search Kit particulars.

Contents:

Establishing a Suitable Source to Search
Formulating a Query
Providing Results

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