Information filtering and information retrieval: two sides of the same coin?

Abstract

Information filtering is a name used to describe a variety of processes involving the delivery of information to people who need it.Although this term is appearing quite often in popular and technical articles describing applications such as electronic mail, multimedia distributed systems, and electronic office documents, the distinction between filtering and related processes such as retrieval, routing, categorization, and extraction is often not dear.It is only by making that distinction, however, that the specific research issues associated with filtering can be identified and addressed.A reasonable first step in defining information filtering is to list the typical characteristics or features of this process.The following features are the most commonly mentioned:• An information filtering system is an information system designed for unstructured or semistructured data.This contrasts with a typical database application that involves very structured data, such as employee records.The notion of structure being used here is not only that the data conforms to a format such as a record type description, but also that the fields of the records consist of simple data types with well-defined meanings.It is possible, for example, to define a database type for a complex document, such as a journal article, but the meaning of the text, figure and table components of that type ¢ONNUNle.INI, TIQNI Opllllil~-IMl/Decem}~er 1992/Vo| .35,No.