Role of Thesaurus in Modern Information Retrieval System

Abstract

Information sources are growing enormously and the biggest access point of information today is the Internet. Search engines are the most popular information retrieval tools in the web today. Bur they retrieve more junk than pinpointed information. Can thesaurus be used in improving the quality of information retrieval, in this context ? Most of us are familiar with the concept of traditional thesaurus or dictionary of synonyms. But online thesaurus still remains a concept familiar to librarians, expert searchers and high-end system developers only. This paper tries to discuss the role of thesaurus in improving the quality of modern information retrieval.