Abstract

The proliferation of the world's \information highways " has renewed interest in e cient document indexing techniques. In this article, we provide an overview of the issues in parallel information retrieval. Basic issues in information retrieval are described and various parallel processing approaches to the problem are discussed. To illustrate the issues involved, we discuss an example of physical index design issues for inverted indexes, a common form of document index. Advantages and disadvantages for query processing are discussed. Finally, to provide an overview of design issues for distributed architectures, we discuss the parameters involved inthe design of a system and rankthemintermsoftheirin uence on query response time.