Relevance as an aid to evaluation in OPACs

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Abstract
The relevance of retrieved documents or document descrip tions has been a central measurement in the evaluation of information retrieval (IR) systems. Online public access cata logues (OPACs) are sirrular in many ways and so relevance should be an appropnate evaluation tool in measuring their performance. The development of relevance in evaluating IR systems is described and also the important differences be tween such systems and OPACs. Characteristics of the end- users of both systems are discussed with the conclusion that end-users' motivation and behaviour are as yet not fully under stood. The implication of this is that relevance is a central feature, but only one, of an OPAC user's overall information need.

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