About the seminar

I will present an account of the history of IR from the beginning of the 20th Century to the present day. My emphasis will be on research, development, and exploitation in Britain. Apart from describing early techniques and models for IR, special attention will be given to how the now almost standard experimental methodology for evaluation and measurement of performance of IR systems arose in Britain. Early researchers in the field such as Roger Needham, Karen Sparck Jones, Robert Fairthorne and Cyril Cleverdon will be acknowledged.

About the speaker

Since about 1969 C.J. (Keith) van Rijsbergen's research has been devoted to information retrieval, covering both theoretical and experimental aspects. He has specified several theoretical models for IR and seen some of them from the specification and prototype stage through to production. His current research is concerned with the design of appropriate logics to model the flow of information. He has served as a programme committee member and editorial board member of the major IR conferences and journals. He is the author of a well-known book Information Retrieval (Butterworths, 1979).

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