Finding Out About

By Richard K. Belew

Book Overview

Finding Out About explains how to build useful tools for searching collections of text and other media. In the process it takes a close look at the properties of textual documents that do not become clear until very large collections of them are brought together and shows that the constructions of effective search engines requires knowledge of the statistical and mathematical properties of linguistic phenomena, as well as an appreciation for the cognitive foundation we bring to the task as language users. The unique approach of this book is its even handling of the phenomena of both numbers and words, giving it a wide appeal. The textbook works for undergraduate and graduate classes on information retrieval, library science, and computational linguistics. More exercises are available to instructors. A supporting Web site includes recent additions to the book, as well as links to sites of new topics and methods.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521734460
• ISBN13: 9780521734462
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Worth having

I found this to be a wonderful book about Search Engines. If you like history, math, computer science, and how we can make computers communicate effectively with people, then this book is a great read. With current Search Engines, we enter some words and get back a bibliography. I look forward to a sequel: "Answer Engines: How You Can Enter a Short, Simple Question and Get Back a Short, Simple Answer (NOT a list of things to read)!"

A refreshing alternative perspective...

I wonder if I was reading the same book as a couple of the reviewers! IMHO there are (too) many books in this field that deal with how search engines work, but the more 'slippery' concepts associated with how people actually use them to find about information have received much less attention.The book provides a very welcome cognitive science perspective on a discipline often dominated by those who seek overly simple mechanistic formulas and 'answers' to very tricky 'questions'.

This is the search engine Bible.

Though I have not Taken Dr. Belew's class, I know he is a consumate professional in his field. His Ideas are new and revolutionary. There are a lot of concepts in the book that I am still trying to grasp, but Belew really does a good job of explaining new concepts in a comprehensive way. He is really an asset to the Computer Science community.