該雜志為廣泛的信息檢索領域的理論、算法、分析和實驗的出版提供了一個國際論壇。感興趣的主題包括搜索、索引、分析和評估應用程序，如Web、社交和流媒體、推薦系統和文本檔案。這包括搜索中的人為因素研究、橋接人工智能和信息檢索以及特定領域的搜索應用。《信息檢索期刊》以理論、實驗、分析和應用文章為特色。理論文章報告了在一些信息檢索任務的算法或其他過程的設計方面的重大概念進展。實驗物品在實驗室或自然環境中詳細測試一個或多個理論觀點。分析文章報告對搜索者行為和各種設置和方法的詳細分析結果，包括用戶研究、調查和日志分析。應用文章涵蓋了一些已經建立的技術在涉及信息檢索的重大現實問題上的成功應用。信息檢索與各種技術和行為領域重疊。因此，該期刊的文章將跨幾個傳統學科界限的概念統一起來，并具體應用于信息檢索問題。

The journal provides an international forum for the publication of theory, algorithms, analysis and experiments across the broad area of information retrieval. Topics of interest include search, indexing, analysis, and evaluation for applications such as the web, social and streaming media, recommender systems, and text archives. This includes research on human factors in search, bridging artificial intelligence and information retrieval, and domain-specific search applications.Information Retrieval Journal features theoretical, experimental, analytical and applied articles. Theoretical articles report a significant conceptual advance in the design of algorithms or other processes for some information retrieval task. Experimental articles detail a test of one or more theoretical ideas in a laboratory or natural setting. Analytical articles report on the results of detailed analysis of searcher behavior and opinions across a range of settings and methodologies, including user studies, surveys and log analysis. Application articles cover successful application of some already established technique to a significant real-world problem involving information retrieval.Information retrieval overlaps with a variety of technical and behavioral fields. As a result, the journal includes articles which unify concepts across several traditional disciplinary boundaries, with specific application to problems of information retrieval.