Corporate Intranet Search Engines

[Janet Kaul]

> From web4lib at library.berkeley.edu  Wed Jun 25 08:21:03 1997
> Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 08:10:49 -0700
> Reply-To: PanekMT at utrc.utc.com
> Originator: web4lib at library.berkeley.edu
> Sender: web4lib at library.berkeley.edu
> From: "Mary T. Panek" <PanekMT at utrc.utc.com>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: Corporate Intranet Search Engines
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> 
> I have some questions regarding corporate intranet search engines.  Does
> anyone have any experience in more of the non-technical aspects 
> (corporate cultural issues or political issues) of implementing an
> intranet search tool?  I am interested in finding out any "lessons
> learned" or "how-to's".
> 
>  - Did you ask permission from the owners of the information to index
> their website(s), or did you assume that since it was on an intranet it
> lends itself to being indexed?
> 
>  - If you did ask permission, what level of approval was acceptable
> (manager, vice-president)?  And how did you identify all of the owners?
> 
>  - If you didn't ask permission, were there any repercussions?
> 
>  - What were your greatest hurdles? and how did you overcome them?
> 
> We have purchased Verity's Search'97 and plan to implement it across our
> corporation.
> 
> Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Mary Panek
> United Technologies
> Project Manager, I-Net Team
> PanekMT at utrc.utc.com

Mary,

When we debuted our intranet, we didn't have a search engine. This
received immediate and many complaints, of course. So we put together
funding, redid our intranet and redeployed searching everyone's
public_html directory. More complaints, since we don't yet have
authorization, so we had to search all the files in their directory.

We now have the directory owners give permission for their directory to
be searchable, and have list of directories from which the search
engine indexes. It's both good and bad. I'm glad to know that people
are using the web to review specs and other sensitive info, even
if it means we can't index their directory. And we are working hard,
therefore, to put a company-wide authorization scheme in place.

We also have the problem now that we are implementing authentication,
though. Many people have a mistrust of web security and fear the
"big brother" syndrome. They're hesitant to use a system where they
have to log in first, even within the corporation. I generally have
to put together a lot of documents pointing out the numerous benefits
of such tools, but even then, we don't FORCE people to comply. They
just miss out on good info. Eventually, we are certain the power and
convenience of the intranet will overpower their concerns. It's
happened before.

We too are currently implementing Verity's Search 97, as you know if
you saw my email on search term separators last week. Be warned that
the Verity engine uses commas to separate search terms by default, and
this hasn't proven to be user-friendly according to many of the
librarians I talked to. We put a javascript behind it to allow
searchers to use spaces instead. In general, though, we've found
Verity to be pretty flexible and extensible, so I think you'll like
it. Good luck.

-Janet Kaul