I'm a newbie

I'm a newbie, so would anyone have any literature they would suggest me read. I'm on a placement and have a very limited time to show evidence of how I can improve the position of the site, so, yeah, any suggestions for a new starter?

Well, to begin with, we are a directory, not a search engine, so there are really only two positions:

--in the directory
--not in the directory.

Try going to http://dmoz.org/ and follow the link to About DMOZ at the top of the page.

Every search engine is different anyway, so you need to find an expert in the search engine you're optimizing for. Most of the major search engines have forums devoted to them, and Webmasterworld.com, IIRC, has an intro to Google placement.

Hint: search the ODP for search engine forums.