More than thirty years ago there was good evidence to suggest that information retrieval involved conceptual problems of greater subtlety than is generally recognized. The dramatic development and growth of online services since then seems not to have been accompanied by much interest in these conceptual problems, the limits they appear to impose, or the potential for transcending such limits through more creative use of the new services.
In this article, I offer a personal perspective on automatic indexing and information retrieval, focusing not necessarily on the mainstream of research but on those events and ideas over a 34-year period that have led to the view stated above, and that have influenced my perception of important directions for future research.
Some experimental tests of information systems have yielded good retrieval results and some very poor results. I shall explain why I think that occurred, why I believe that the poor results merit special attention, and why we should reconsider a suggestion that Robert Fairthorne put forward in 1963 to develop postulates of impotence -statements of what cannot be done. By understanding such limits we are led to new goals, metaphors, problems, postulates, and perspectives.