[WEB4LIB] Re: Search engines and positronic brains

[Carl Merat]

Since I just had to find out what the Riverbank Publications were, from a
simple "riverbank publications" search at Altavista I found 9 docs one of
which 

http://www.aegeanparkpress.com/catalog.htm

told me

THE RIVERBANK PUBLICATIONS, Volume 1, William F. Friedman, 8-1/2 x 11, 138
pp. The Riverbank Publications 
                    were the first really quality monographs written on
what today is termed the 
                   science of cryptology. In these monographs, Friedman
used scientific thought
                     and methodology to describe the techniques and methods
used in solving 
                      cryptographic systems. The Riverbank Publications in
a sense "set the 
                      stage" for cryptology becoming a science.

Granted all searches are not that clean in number of hits returned, but I
prefer to skip all the confusing folders that may lead me way down the
wrong path. It seemed to me that none of the "content classification"
folders  at NL were even close to cryptography. IMHO without wide
acceptance of standardized indexing in documents and/or segmentation of
engines by disciplines, the best we can hope for is picking "the" search
engine that happened to harvest the page we need with our search terms on
that page. Not very hopeful or positronic!
Carl Merat
Technical Services Librarian
Liberty University
----------
From: Bob Duncan <duncanr at lafvax.lafayette.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Search engines and positronic brains
Date: Thursday, June 03, 1999 8:56 AM

At 12:45 PM 6/2/99, Joyce Ward, Director, Content Classification, Northern
Light Technology LLC wrote:
>I took the Ask Jeeves challenge, then I did the same query:
>
>What are the Riverbank Publications?
>
>in Northern Light.
> . . .
>Note that the top 10 documents or so are relevant, and that we generate a
>a folder for 'Cryptography'.

I hate to be picky, and I'm sure Joyce is a very nice person who works very
hard to make our lives easier, but...

Out of the first 10 documents, two are 404s and the other 8 are various
forms of bibliographies.  I suppose a reasonably intelligent person could
figure out based on the bibs that the Riverbank Publications have
*something to do with cryptography*, but to consider these results
"relevant" to the query "what are the Riverbank Publications?" is
stretching the definition of relevant close to the breaking point.

Also, the "or so" documents (namely results 11-15) refer to a painting
("The Riverbank");  a grassroots coalition ("save Riverbank Park");  a
piece of software ("RiverBank");  an industrial complex;  and a publication
("Riverbank Review of Books for Young Readers").

NL did a good job of floating the most-likely-to-be-relevant docs to the
top of the 2100+ results returned, but I doubt this had little to do with
so-called "content classification" -- the search "riverbank publications"
(with quotes) turns up 11 records in NL.  Looks like simple phrase
weighting to me.

Bob Duncan

~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
  Robert E. Duncan
  Systems Librarian
  David Bishop Skillman Library
  Lafayette College
  Easton, PA 18042
  610-330-5156
  duncanr at lafayette.edu
  http://www.library.lafayette.edu/