Porpuse: The main objective of this study was to analyze the content of “information retrieval” among papers indexed in WoS.
Methodology: Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, this study tried to give a complete overview of papers in which “information retrieval” has been tackled. The time period considered in this study was 1993-2012.
Findings: The results of the content analysis showed that out of 389 articles in the field of “information retrieval”, 30% were published in the journal of “Information Processing Management”. Moreover, subcategories of “interactive information retrieval”, “cross language information retrieval”, and “relevance” are the most frequently used themes in these papers.
Conclusion: The findings indicate that information retrieval researchers paid a special attention to the interactive aspects of information retrieval. On the other hand, due to the influence of technology in most countries, and language diversity in the world, a growing interest in research in the field of cross-language information retrieval can be observed.
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