Web-based Information Retrieval

The current digital era of an overabundance of information has witnessed a spectacular growth in the information flood everywhere. Millions of websites and the trend to digitized information prepared the ground for reducing the human overheads in obtaining information from digital libraries and general web resources, while retaining their valuable content.

That Web-based information consumes is rather obvious; it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

The development of electronic information and communication technology (ICT) has radically impacted library practices. The dramatic shifts in information flow and the sea change in digital formatted library materials enforce the appellation “library without wall”. Multiple Items of information can be used by multiple subscribers in multiple times. So, the internet may be treated as the best medium of the multi-user level service provider. The steady development of search engines makes the internet ever more powerful and user-friendly. Full text search facilities provide extremely helpful search results comparable to most users’ expectations. The current digital era with its emerging digitization trends has substantially influenced users. For the best availability of information, researchers, besides the general public, have become acquainted with the web-based resources and information required for their higher studies and research.

Web-based information (or the internet) is a major force for changing the role of libraries and information centers. In fact, the internet has broken new ground for finding and retrieving information and with it the end-user has found a way to become more information dependent.