Characteristics and structure of textual records: definition, content, structure and context; elements of record metadata. Databases of textual records: databases as collections of textual records, categorisation of database types, contrast and comparison with other types of databases eg relational, electronic record keeping principles. Textual information retrieval principles: boolean operators, proximity operators, limit operators, truncation, inverted indexes, keyword versus phrase indexing, controlled vocabulary and thesaurus use versus uncontrolled keyword searching, retrieval command languages, set logic and construction for retrieval purposes. Construction and implementation of search strategies: search sequence diagrams, query expansion, broadening and narrowing search results, strategies to avoid information overload. Advanced retrieval features: relevance feedback, introduction to weighting and probabilistic retrieval. Information retrieval systems for specific information environments: libraries, archives, records management systems, etc. Basic design and creation of text-based databases using information retrieval systems: data structures, documentary and management metadata elements and their properties, data entry or conversion requirements, data output techniques. Creation of basic information resources for delivery and access via the World Wide Web.

Available in Session 1, 2006 only