How do you review a book that runs to almost 900 pages? Answers on a pack of postcards please! Two books sparked my interest in the history of information. The first was A History of Online Information Services 1963-1976 by Bourne and Hahn which provides a vast amount of detail on the early development of… Continue reading Information – A Historical Companion (Review)
And finally…..from the Editor
When I started work at Logica in 1989 one of the most talented of my consulting team (let me call him John) had a significant visual handicap resulting from macular degeneration. At the time John had to rely on a horizontally-scrolling LED display of text to write reports and create emails. Apart from being a… Continue reading And finally…..from the Editor
In the Winter issue
November 2021 was a very busy time for IRSG. The Search Solutions Conference took place virtually on 24 November. You can read reports on the conference and on the two tutorials in this issue. There is also a list of the BCS Search Industry Awards that were announced at the Conference. Continuing the ‘awards’ theme… Continue reading In the Winter issue
From Udo Kruschwitz – BCS IRSG Chairman
Happy New Year everybody! It is a pleasure for me to contribute a few words in my role as chair of the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group. This is my second year of term, and we are looking back at another turbulent year — who would have thought that in autumn 2021 we would have… Continue reading From Udo Kruschwitz – BCS IRSG Chairman
Search Solutions 2021 – conference report
Looking back at the ten papers and two panel discussions at the BCS IRSG Search Solutions 2021 conference in November there was a very strong theme that emerged with most of the papers providing a set of variations. The theme at its most basic was that ‘one size does not fit all’, especially when it comes… Continue reading Search Solutions 2021 – conference report
Search Solutions 2021 – Tutorials report
As has been the custom, the main Search Solutions 2021 event has again been preceded by a day of tutorials. Two tutorials were successfully delivered on the day: an introduction to Natural Language Processing and a “Practitioners’ Evaluation Roundtable” (which was not a tutorial in the strict sense). Haiming Liu, Ingo Frommholz and Jochen Leidner… Continue reading Search Solutions 2021 – Tutorials report
BCS Search Industry Awards 2021
At the BCS IRSG Search Solutions 2021 Conference on 24 November there was a session during which the BCS Search Industry Awards for 2021 were presented by Tony Russell-Rose on behalf of the IRSG Committee. The Conference was once again (and hopefully for the last time!) virtual so there was no opportunity to applaud the winners. This year there… Continue reading BCS Search Industry Awards 2021
Microsoft-BCS/BCS-IRSG Karen Spärck Jones Award 2021 for Dr Ivan Vulić
Dr Ivan Vulić from the University of Cambridge has been named as the winner of the Microsoft-BCS/BCS-IRSG Karen Spärck Jones Award 2021 The award, which is sponsored by Microsoft Research, was created in 2008 to remember Professor Karen Spärck Jones FBA, a leading researcher in information retrieval at what was at the time called the… Continue reading Microsoft-BCS/BCS-IRSG Karen Spärck Jones Award 2021 for Dr Ivan Vulić
Strix Lecture 2021 – 9 December 2021
The annual Tony Kent Strix Annual Memorial Lecture was held on December 9th. The lecture was given by the 2020 Strix Award winner Ian Ruthven (Professor, University of Strahtclyde). He delivered his journey of research over the past 20 years where attendees learned that many of his contributions were through collaborative efforts with many researchers… Continue reading Strix Lecture 2021 – 9 December 2021
IRSG 2021-2022 AGM Committee Elections
The IRSG Annual General Meeting (AGM) took place immediately after Search Solutions 2021, where the committee election results were announced. The full list of current committee members is now available on the IRSG governance page. Incoming committee members are Tony Russell-Rose (Vice-Chair), Graham McDonald (Ordinary Committee Member) and Annalina Caputo (ECIR 2023 Committee Member). Existing… Continue reading IRSG 2021-2022 AGM Committee Elections