Infrastructure for Bangla information retrieval in the context of ICT for development

Abstract

In this paper, we talk about developing a search engine and information retrieval system for Bangla. Current work done in this area assumes the use of a particular type of encoding or the availability of particular facilities for the user. We wanted to come up with an implementation that did not require any special features or optimizations in the user end, and would perform just as well in all situations. For this purpose, we picked two case studies to work on in our effort to finding a suitable solution to the problem. While working on these cases, we encountered several problems and had to find our way around these problems. We had to pick and choose from a set of software packages for the one that would best serve our needs. We also had to take into consideration user convenience in using our system, for which we had to keep in mind the diverse demographics of people that might have need for such a system. Finally, we came up with the system, with all the desired features. Some possible future developments also came into mind in the course of our work, which are also mentioned in this paper. © 2007 Springer.