Data Retrieval = Text Retrieval?

Due to the comparatively more recent emergence of data retrieval systems than text-based search engines, the former have still yet to achieve similar maturity in terms of standards and techniques. Most of the existing solutions for data retriev-al are more or less makeshift adaptations of text retrieval systems rather than pur-pose-built solutions specially designed to cater to the particular peculiarities, sub-tleties, and unique requirements of research datasets. In this paper we probe into the key differences between text and data retrieval that bear practical relevance to the retrieval question; these differences we demonstrate by evaluating some rep-resentative examples of research data repositories as well as presenting findings from previous studies.