<s>
Geographic	B-General_Concept
information	I-General_Concept
retrieval	I-General_Concept
(	O
GIR	O
)	O
or	O
geographical	B-General_Concept
information	I-General_Concept
retrieval	I-General_Concept
systems	O
are	O
search	B-Library
tools	I-Library
for	O
searching	B-Application
the	I-Application
Web	I-Application
,	O
enterprise	B-Application
documents	O
,	O
and	O
mobile	O
local	O
search	O
that	O
combine	O
traditional	O
text-based	O
queries	B-Library
with	O
location	O
querying	O
,	O
such	O
as	O
a	O
map	O
or	O
placenames	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
Like	O
traditional	O
information	B-Library
retrieval	I-Library
systems	I-Library
,	O
GIR	O
systems	O
index	O
text	O
and	O
information	O
from	O
structured	B-Application
and	O
unstructured	B-Application
documents	O
,	O
and	O
also	O
augment	O
those	O
indices	O
with	O
geographic	B-General_Concept
information	I-General_Concept
.	O
</s>
<s>
The	O
development	O
and	O
engineering	O
of	O
GIR	O
systems	O
aims	O
to	O
build	O
systems	O
that	O
can	O
reliably	O
answer	O
queries	B-Library
that	O
include	O
a	O
geographic	O
dimension	O
,	O
such	O
as	O
"	O
What	O
wars	O
were	O
fought	O
in	O
Greece	O
?	O
"	O
</s>
<s>
Semantic	O
similarity	O
and	O
word-sense	B-General_Concept
disambiguation	I-General_Concept
are	O
important	O
components	O
of	O
GIR	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
To	O
identify	O
place	O
names	O
,	O
GIR	O
systems	O
often	O
rely	O
on	O
natural	B-Language
language	I-Language
processing	I-Language
or	O
other	O
metadata	O
to	O
associate	O
text	O
documents	O
with	O
locations	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
Such	O
georeferencing	B-General_Concept
,	O
geotagging	O
,	O
and	O
geoparsing	O
tools	O
often	O
need	O
databases	O
of	O
location	O
names	O
,	O
known	O
as	O
gazetteers	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
GIR	O
involves	O
extracting	O
and	O
resolving	O
the	O
meaning	O
of	O
locations	O
in	O
unstructured	B-Application
text	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
GIR	O
systems	O
can	O
commonly	O
be	O
broken	O
down	O
into	O
the	O
following	O
stages	O
:	O
geoparsing	O
,	O
text	O
and	O
geographic	O
indexing	O
,	O
data	O
storage	O
,	O
geographic	O
relevance	O
ranking	O
with	O
respect	O
to	O
a	O
geographic	O
query	B-Library
and	O
browsing	O
results	O
commonly	O
with	O
a	O
map	O
interface	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
Some	O
GIR	O
systems	O
separate	O
text	O
indexing	O
from	O
geographic	O
indexing	O
,	O
which	O
enables	O
the	O
use	O
of	O
generic	O
database	B-Language
joins	I-Language
,	O
or	O
multi-stage	O
filtering	O
,	O
and	O
others	O
combine	O
them	O
for	O
efficiency	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
Frankenplace	O
:	O
a	O
general-purpose	O
geographic	O
search	B-Application
engine	I-Application
.	O
</s>
<s>
See	O
Ray	O
Larson	O
’s	O
book	O
Geographic	B-General_Concept
information	I-General_Concept
retrieval	I-General_Concept
and	O
spatial	O
browsing	O
for	O
references	O
to	O
much	O
of	O
the	O
pre-Web	O
literature	O
on	O
GIR	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
GeoCLEF	O
was	O
the	O
first	O
TREC-style	O
evaluation	O
forum	O
for	O
GIR	O
systems	O
and	O
provided	O
participants	O
a	O
chance	O
to	O
compare	O
systems	O
.	O
</s>
<s>
GIR	O
has	O
many	O
applications	O
in	O
geoweb	B-Application
,	O
neogeography	O
,	O
and	O
mobile	O
local	O
search	O
and	O
has	O
been	O
a	O
focus	O
of	O
many	O
conferences	O
,	O
including	O
the	O
ESRI	O
Users	O
Conferences	O
and	O
Reilly	O
’s	O
Where	O
2.0	O
conferences	O
.	O
</s>
