Indexing and searching mechanism based mainly upon topical attributes of documents has been showing certain limitations.The function of the non-topical attributes and their implications to information retrieval and system design are not yet fully explored.By summarizing the non-topical attributes of documents and by analyzing them in light of information needs,information seeking,the author attempts to explore their potentialities to information retrieval and information system design.Based on some non-topical attributes,a system,NSIRS,was developed and evaluated in order to test the ideas brought forward in this article.Finally,the non-topical attributes embedded in some well-known information retrieval systems are discussed as well.
