A new implementation of free-text search using a new parallel computer—the Connection Machine®—makes possible the application of exhaustive methods not previously feasible for large databases.
Interfaces for information access and retrieval are a long way from the ideal of the electronic book that you can cuddle up with in bed. Nevertheless, today's interfaces are coming closer to supporting browsing, selection, and retrieval of remote information by nontechnical users.This article describes five interfaces to distributed systems of servers that have been designed and implemented: WAlStation for the Macintosh, XWAIS for X-Windows, GWAIS for Gnu-Emacs, SWAIS for dumb terminals, and Rosebud for the Macintosh. These interfaces talk to one of two server systems: the Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) system on the internet, and the Rosebud Server System, on an internal network at Apple Computer. Both server systems are built on 239.50, a standard protocol, and thus support access to a wide range of remote databases.The interfaces described here reflect a variety of design constraints. Such constraints range from the mundane-coping with dumb terminals and limited screen space-to the challenging. Among the challenges addressed are how to provide passive alerts, how to make information easily scannable, and how to support retrieval and browsing by nontechnical users. There are a variety of other issues which have received little or no attention, including budgeting money for access to "for pay" databases, privacy, and how to assist users in finding out which of a large (changing) set of databases holds relevant information. We hope that the challenges we have identified, as well as the existence and public availability of source code for the WAIS system, will serve as a stimulus for further design work on interfaces for information retrieval. IntroductionIt requires little prescience to predict that one day computers will put an ocean of information at the finger tips of a vast population of users. However, although there is a considerable amount of information available from remote sources, the bulk of it is accessible only to information professionals, or users with technical backgrounds. A variety of obstacles effectively block the ordinary user from accessing information via the computer. These obstacles include the difficulty of locating appropriate information sources, the cumbersome maneuvers needed to get online and to connect to remote sources, and cryptic query languages. Furthermore, even if a user has succeeded in accessing a remote information source, it is likely that it will have its own special purpose interface, which may or may not support the user's needs.In this article, we describe two systems-Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) and Rosebud-which provide a protocol-based mechanism for accessing a variety of remote, full-text information servers. These systems have the potential for supporting a single interface to a wide variety of information sources, and offer a good platform on which to explore the design of interfaces for information retrieval. After a summary of existing information retrieval systems, we describe the server systems, and then describe the five interfaces to them. I...
In this paper we present a corporate information system for untrained users to search gigabytes of unformatted data using quasi‐natural language and relevance feedback queries. The data can reside on distributed servers anywhere on a wide area network, giving the users access to personal, corporate, and published information from a single interface. Effective queries can be turned into profiles, allowing the system to automatically alert the user when new data are available. The system was tested by twenty executive users located in six cities. Our primary goal in building the system was to determine if the technology and infrastructure existed to make end‐user searching of unstructured information profitable. We found that effective search and user interface technologies for end‐users are available, but network technologies are still a limiting cost factor. As a result of the experiment, we are continuing the development of the system. This article will describe the overall system architecture, the implemented subset, and the lessons learned.
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