Information retrieval at the millenium.

Information retrieval systems were among the first medical informatics applications, yet their use has changed substantially in this decade with the growth of end-user computers and the Internet. While early challenges revolved around how to increase the amount of information available in electronic form, more recent challenges center on how to manage the growing volume. Traditional information retrieval issues--such as how to organize and index information to make it more retrievable as well as how to evaluate the effectiveness of systems--are still as pertinent as ever.