*implementing* search engines for a campus

[R124C41 at aol.com]

In regard to the response from andrzej at dingo.com (Andrzej Kowalski)....it is
*not* the case that "Free text engines e.g. WAIS typically have limited or
zero support for
structured fields and relational-types of operations."

We have implemented both catalog and full text repository web-based online
access methods for two document collections internal to the CDF and D0 high
energy physics collaborations at Fermilab using freeWAIS_sf (structured field
wais) and WWW.

Our implementation was reported at the Computing in High Energy Physics
Conference, September 1995, Rio de Janiero, Brazil in the paper "Accessing
HEP Collaboration Documents using WWW and WAIS," by Trang D. Nguyen, Liz
Buckley-Geer, and David Ritchie.

For the abstract (in text) with a reference to the paper (in Postscript) as
provided to the conference web server, see:

http://www-chep95.fnal.gov/abstracts/abs_153.html

For the corresponding Fermilab Publication, see:

http://fnalpubs.fnal.gov/techpubs/10oct_publication.html

The implementation supports forms-based querying by Web Browsers of the
document collection catalog as well as full text searching of those cataloged
documents that are available online.  Because the collections represent the
internal papers of the CDF and DZero collaborations, access to the URL is
restricted and therefore not available.

However, I do expect the software necessary to implement the unix-based
product to become available later this year via the Fermi Tools Product at
URL:

http://www.fnal.gov/fermitools/

so please watch that area for updates.

This is not to dimish the point of Andrzej Kowalski and others that, as
freeware, such things as freeWAIS_sf, require  internal support resources.
 Organizations without those resources may very well be better off with
commercial products that do similar things.

--David J. Ritchie
--Naperville, Il
--R124C41 at AOL.COM