Claims

• Information storage and retrieval deals with a basic human need and activity
• IR is crucial for Digital Libraries
• IR is crucial for the Global Information Infrastructure
• We now need Information Literacy --- search, browsing, linking, publishing --- science and skill

Explanation and Evidence

• IR is a key part of: informatics, information technology, MMIS, DMMIS, DHS, ...
• IR engines are at the heart of WAIS, CORE, OED2, Envision and other Digital Libraries
• WWW becomes cumbersome without searching, as have other hypertext systems that scale up
• Hyper-G is designed to include automatic indexing and searching
• See also recent coverage in CACM