25. The server of claim 20 , wherein operations associated with the postprocessor include refining the search result in accordance with a multi-dimensional data structure that relates topics in the taxonomy selected to documents and associated relevance weighting factors.
20. A server of an information retrieval system, the server comprising: at least one processor; and a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations, the at least one processor comprising: a preprocessor, wherein operations associated with the preprocessor include: receiving a query by the server from a requesting application presented by a client access device, the query including a first term, the requesting application having a plurality of subject areas, the query associated with a subject area of the plurality of subject areas; selecting a taxonomy that is associated with the subject area of the query, the plurality of subject areas being related to different taxonomies; and refining the query based on the taxonomy selected to include a second term in the query; a switchboard, wherein operations associated with the switchboard include retrieving a search result from at least one database in accordance with the query as refined, the search result including at least one document; and a postprocessor, wherein operations associated with the postprocessor include refining the retrieved search result for transmission by the server to the client access device.