Relevance is a fundamental, though not completely understood, concept for documentation, information scithere was little agreement as to the exact nature of releence, and information retrieval. This article presents the vance and even less that it could be operationalized in history of relevance through an exhaustive review of the systems or for the evaluation of systems. . . . this lack literature. Such history being very complex (about 160 of agreement continues to an extent at the present. papers are discussed), it is not simple to describe it in (Froehlich, 1994, p. 124) a comprehensible way. Thus, first of all a framework for establishing a common ground is defined, and then the This is an article on the history of relevance in the history itself is illustrated via the presentation in chronofields of documentation, information science and informalogical order of the papers on relevance. The history is divided into three periods (''Before 1958,'' ''1959-1976,'' tion retrieval. Why to write an article on the history of and ''1977-present'') and, inside each period, the papers relevance? How to write it? The first question is answered on relevance are analyzed under seven different aspects by the following points:
(methodological foundations, different kinds of relevance, beyond-topical criteria adopted by users, modes j The above three citations witness that relevance is one for expression of the relevance judgment, dynamic naof the central concepts, if not the central concept, for ture of relevance, types of document representation, and documentation, information science, and information agreement among different judges).
retrieval (IR in the following): In the first citation, Saracevic maintains that relevance is the reason for the birth of information science and emphasizes its impor-