i202 Fall 2010 School of Information, UC Berkeley

Most IR research has been focused on static information retrieval as if we are retrieving information from physical and digital libraries, and those techniques are what we have learned as part of this course. However, increasingly, researchers have become interested in the dynamic and temporal nature of information on the Web.

Google completely revolutionized the way search was performed when it brought out the concept of Page Rank in webpages. Pages which were "legitimate" so to speak were given more weight as compared to the others and this started the prolific trend of SEO companies that we see today. Trying to make your website more "friendly" for the spider to take notice of you and increase the number of back links to your websites using numerous link building measures only seemed to add to the choreographed process of Search Engine Optimization.

We've talked a lot about Moby Dick as an example of a narrative document, but Chapter 32 of Moby Dick deserves a place slightly farther to the right in the document type spectrum. Chapter 32 is all about cetology, the study of whales and dolphins.

Collecting information is not the same everywhere. This article by The Economist reveals different methods used to collect information for digital maps: from using sophisticated GPS systems in England, to note-taking in India and voluntary contributions in Nigeria. There is no single way to get data from every place, and different information is needed by different users in a variety of contexts. The following questions arise: How do we standarize all these different data-collections?

This Economist article describes the use of bar codes in conjunction with mobile phone cameras to provide users with real-time, context-sensitive information. An example of this is the traveller photographing a barcode at a railway station with his mobile phone to obtain train timetables. Despite of varying bar code standards, the author suggests their free, open standard nature will encourage wider adoption. However, for this technology to become pervasive, collaboration between barcode software developer