The ideal of any searching
project should be to get exactly
what you want or need and
nothing
more or less. Of couse,
this is often not the case.
In database searching there are
two very
important concepts that
define the boundaries of this process:
Precision
and Recall
Concepts
Precision
This consists of targeting
your search.
Specifically, you want to
create a search that results only in the records that are
relevant to your search need.
This is important when you
have a limited amount of money to spend on database
searching.
Recall
This consists of making your
search comprehensive.
Specifically, you want expand
your search to ensure that you get all the possible records
that are relevant to your search need.
This becomes important when it
is vital to find out all of the relevant information on the
subject of your search, such as all of the current research on
curing lung cancer.