Information retrieval in cultural heritage

This article discusses the opportunities and challenges of applying modern information retrieval techniques to the cultural heritage domain. Although the field of information retrieval is closely associated with computer science, it originally emerged from library science — also one of the main disciplines concerned with access to cultural heritage material. Hence we are, in a sense, exploring what happens if we bring these strands of research back together again. The article consists of three parts. In the first part, we explain the field of information retrieval and its multidisciplinary nature. In the second part, we discuss how and why the problem of providing access to cultural heritage can be cast naturally as an information retrieval problem. In the third and main part, we present a detailed case study of applying the modern information retrieval approach in practice within a museum.