ECIR 2023: bigger (and heavier) than ever

From Udo Kruschwitz – BCS IRSG Chair

Welcome to our Spring 2023 edition of Informer! Have we seen you in Dublin? Not inconceivable given it was the biggest ECIR ever in many respects including number of attendees (more than 400 registrations!). It felt as if everbody was there … Well, in case you missed the conference there is plenty of reading material […]

If in Europe ...

From the BCS IRSG Chair

Welcome to this autumn issue of Informer from your Chair. Hopefully you had a spectacular summer (or winter if you happen to be in Australia) with plenty of sun (or snow) and perhaps some conference trips? Well, if your answer to the last point is ‘unfortunately not’, then maybe you should consider joining us at […]

From the  BCS IRSG Chair

From the BCS IRSG Chair

Hello everybody and welcome back to a world of in-person meetings, conferences and banquets. Just as we had started to get used to living in a virtual world we will have to adapt again. Do you even remember what it was like to ask a question from the floor? Or how about shaking hands? What’s […]

From Udo Kruschwitz – BCS IRSG Chairman

Happy New Year everybody! It is a pleasure for me to contribute a few words in my role as chair of the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group. This is my second year of term, and we are looking back at another turbulent year — who would have thought that in autumn 2021 we would have […]

From Udo Kruschwitz – BCS/IRSG Chairman

In my role as new Chair of the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group it gives me great pleasure to wish you — our dear readership — a Happy New Year! This actually sends me back in time recalling those days/nights when I wrote the editorials for Informer, the pressure of writing something sensible, recruiting a […]

Brexit: Making good progress.

Editorial

Welcome to a new issue of Informer! Has it really been 7 years since we relaunched Informer? Then this must in fact be Editorial number 29 … it feels like it was just twenty minutes ago that I wrote the first one.  Time flies when you are getting old. So perhaps it’s time to step down […]

Editorial

Editorial

Welcome to the Autumn 2018 edition of Informer! What a great time of the year, the days get shorter, the nights get colder, the Pound drops further. Happy days. You can be happy too if you do not miss our early-bird deadline to register for our annual practitioners’ event – Search Solutions! We have been running […]

Editorial

Editorial

Welcome to the Summer 2018 edition of Informer! We are back with a mix of news, reports and reminders, all from the world of search. Did I say reminder? If you are planning to host the top European Information Retrieval conference in 2020, then you have until Friday next week to hand in your bid. […]

Editorial

Editorial

Welcome to our Spring 2018 edition of Informer! Knowing the busy lifestyle of our readership, we made this  a compact issue that should quickly get you updated on some of the things going on in the world of search. First things first, ECIR is ranked A in the CORE conference rankings! This is largely due […]

Happy New Year!

Editorial

Welcome to the Winter 2018 edition of Informer! Slightly later than usual, therefore we jump straight into the news section: Jochen Leidner (Director of Research at Thomson Reuters) and Frank Hopfgartner (Senior Lecturer at Sheffield University) are our new faces in the IRSG committee. Let’s give them a round of applause for their election success. […]

Open for Business: IRSG to welcome new Committee Members

Editorial

Welcome back! Now that the summer has finally disappeared and rain is replaced by darkness, we would like to keep you posted on what’s been going on in the world of search. We are a little earlier this time with our Autumn issue of Informer as we want to make sure you hit two important deadlines. […]

Editorial

Editorial

Welcome to the summer 2017 issue of Informer! It is always such a pleasure to be reminded by you, our readership, that it is time for a new compilation of stories from the world of search and information retrieval, in fact more like two worlds — the one that practitioners operate in and the academic […]

Information Retrieval in action

Editorial

Welcome to a new edition of Informer! It’s Spring 2017 and you are reading the official newsletter of the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group. What an honour to have YOU as our readership. Let’s jump straight in: we did introduce an important change this time. We 

Editorial

Editorial

Welcome and Happy New Year! “We had a great 2016. 2017 will prove to be even better” as an anonymous letter writer assures me … although he/she/it also assures me that the European Union is doomed and that I should respect the democratic will of the British people. What better way to start the year […]

Breakfast means Breakfast (Scottish)

Editorial

Welcome to the Autumn 2016 edition of Informer! It’s been a busy few months and as you can see we waited until the election period was over before going live so that we can now officially confirm (hot off the press) that Stefan Rüger is the new chair of the IRSG. Stefan brings in many years […]

Summertine - and the livin' is easy ...

Editorial

Are we late for the summer edition? We don’t think so, as the summer is still in full swing. It’s difficult even to recall what a non-summer day looks like. Rain? Snow? Never seen … Welcome back to Informer! Let’s be purely factual this time to get you straight to the content. Take-home message number […]

ECIR - a (very) serious business

Editorial

Welcome to the Spring 2016 edition of Informer! We know we are a bit late this time but we wanted to find out how eagerly people are awaiting our next issue (not quite an A/B test but close enough) and yes, the readers’ response was overwhelming and we promise not to delay the delivery of […]

Deep Learning? Shallow Water?

Editorial

Welcome to our winter 2016 edition of Informer! Another year has passed and we are now in the fifth year of our relaunched newsletter. Time for a review? No way, but perhaps you tell us what you think so far. What’s new this time? Many new contributors for a start…

Editorial

Welcome to a new edition of Informer! Ever wondered how to best get from London to Aberdeen? On a sleeper train! If you are confident enough that your paper gets accepted at ECIR 2017, then why not book early (to avoid disappointment) as it is now official that ECIR 2017 will be hosted by the […]

Editorial

Editorial

Welcome to our summer 2015 edition of Informer! What a great summer, what an action-filled year, what a good number of reasons to keep celebrating. Cheers! Now, first point: ECIR 2017 will be held in

Welcome to Vienna!

Editorial

Welcome back! It’s April and another ECIR has just passed, one full of workshops. tutorials, wine tastings, schnitzel, excellent keynote talks, more schnitzel, more great talks. We will bring you the latest ECIR news in this edition of Informer (among many other things).

Spot the IR researcher

Editorial

Happy New Year and welcome to a new edition of Informer! This time we offer you a special edition, a Conference Reviews Edition. Nothing but conference reviews, how does that sound? Well, let us know and we will listen …

"To Beers please"

Editorial

Welcome to the autumn edition of Informer! For those of you who don’t know, Informer is the newsroom of the Information Retrieval Specialist Group (IRSG) of the British Computer Society. We spare no effort in getting the hottest pieces of (IRSG) news, getting the best contributors and compiling  the most up-to-date list of IR-related events. […]