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The need for "Research Quality" search engines
Vision -- a search toolkit
Wouldn't it be neat if ...
This vision statement is a set of thoughts along the lines, "Wouldn't it be neat if ...?" On this page, the focus is on how search tools might be set up so that they are more useful to people. The ways in which these tools might serve the needs of various groups of people are suggested in the pages that follow.
The word index is used frequently in these pages. If you missed the glossary entry, here it is again:
Index (plural: indexes or indices): An index consists of words, a count of occurrences of that word, and a list of places where that word occurs. The backs of reference works and text books normally have subject indexes which are exactly parallel in purpose ... to help you find what you are looking for. The magic of a computerized index is the program's abilities to compare lists of multiple words quickly, identify which records contain the desired combination of terms, and calculate which hits are most likely to be relevant to the person who is searching.A dream list
In this visioning page, we are indebted to Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles for ideas from their book Raving Fans (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1993).
Imagine what might be to you a complete set of tools that would satisfy your every need in learning, teaching, writing, publishing, researching, getting a message out, etc. Our impression is that such a tool kit might include:
- Multiple text extractors to provide access to content of a wide variety of file types
- Formatting software to recognize headings, move footnotes into position below paragraphs, etc.
- An indexing engine to create lists, count frequencies, and calculate positions of words, then finalize indexes
- Enough power to handle exabytes of text
- Software to fold indexes into a single index
- Software to aggregate across indexes, so that searches may be carried out across progressively larger sets of text data
- Software to reconstitute text from non-private indexes
- A desktop search engine
- A server-based search engine
- A web crawler, should you need one, to retrieve content from specified Internet sites
- Pattern recognition software for desktop-based research
If your vision of an ideal search tool kit includes other components, please share your ideas with us.
Control
The assumption is that these tools would be put in the hands of the user. Ideally, many of the basic tools would be free, and others would be kept in a price range that would ensure reasonable access to users.
With the above tools in hand, the user would have extensive control. Such a move would shift away from centralized power and democratize search. Such a vision, brought to reality, would change the nature of search totally. (There would still be a role for the major Internet search systems, but that is another story, for their ears.) Think of the possibilities for students, teachers, writers, publishers, researchers, advertisers, people. Read on. That is what the remaining pages in this mini-course are about.
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