Thanks, Gunter, You are right, of course, that ranking is essential for keyword searches for information, as on Google. However, MWeb is different in two ways:
First, it is designed for searching for objects rather than information, such as found in museum and library catalogs. If a user is searching for "ruined mill", what ranking algorithm could determine which paintings s/he wants most? Second, MWeb's Advanced Search, boolean, phrase seaching, and subsets allow the user to be specific about what objects are wanted, in order to reduce the result set to a manageable size. These features have proven useful in MWeb Universal installations of up to several million records. For hundreds of millions, or billions, that's a different problem. Of course, these features rely to some extent on the quality and consistency of the data. For library catalogs specifically, perhaps we should continue the dialog offline as this is a museum community. The dialog is much appreciated! Stephen - Stephen Toney Systems Planning toney at systemsplanning.com http://systemsplanning.com MWeb, CAPS, MARCView, and MARConvert are trademarks of Systems Planning On Fri, 2009-03-13 at 12:40 -0400, Waibel,Guenter wrote: > Dear Stephen, > > While I don't mean to rain on your parade, I have to admit that my > question was a little bit tongue-in-cheek. The library community has > been trying to get meaningful ranking of federated search results to > work for the better part of 10 years now. At this point, it's widely > acknowledged that ranking is the Achilles heel of federated search, > and even with the best technology, a limitation which can't be > completely mediated. I'd say that a lot of the early enthusiasm about > federated searching as the solution to integrating datasources, > especially at scale, has dissipated by now. > > Having said that, I can see the usefulness of this kind of search for > a limited number of datasources, such as library, archive, museum > collections. It's a great first step to see all the content in one > place! > > Cheers, > > G?nter > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Stephen Toney [mailto:toney at systemsplanning.com] > Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 8:40 AM > To: Waibel,Guenter > Cc: Museum Computer Network Listserv > Subject: RE: [MCN-L] MWeb Universal > > Hello Gunter, > > At present MWeb Universal sorts alphabetically by the brief name of the > database, subsorted by the type of content. Ranking is a good idea and > we will add it to a future release. > > Thanks for the suggestion! > Stephen > > - > Stephen Toney > Systems Planning > toney at systemsplanning.com > http://systemsplanning.com > > MWeb, CAPS, MARCView, and MARConvert are trademarks of Systems Planning > > > On Fri, 2009-03-13 at 11:29 -0400, Waibel,Guenter wrote: > > Hi Stephen, > > > > How do you deal with ranking search results from various sources? > > > > The Baltimore example seems to side-step ranking. It displays hits > > segregated by database. > > > > Cheers, > > > > G?nter > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu] On Behalf > > Of Stephen Toney > > Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 7:03 AM > > To: Chuck Patch > > Cc: Museum Computer Network Listserv > > Subject: Re: [MCN-L] MWeb Universal > > > > > > On Thu, 2009-03-12 at 09:57 -0400, Chuck Patch wrote: > > > Hi Stephen, > > > > > > This is really interesting. ... looks like you are inches away from > > > being able to create a PastPerfect Consortium. > > > > > > Thanks, Chuck, > > > > Actually MWeb Universal can do that now. Try > > http://searchbaltimore.pastperfect-online.com > > to search a consortium of three Baltimore museums. > > > > The current release is suitable for consortia of any museums, not just > > PastPerfect sites, since it can search any CMSs or databases without > > exporting, FTPing or Z39.50. > > > > MWeb Universal has been tested with 50 databases at once. > > > > Thanks! > > Stephen > > - > > Stephen Toney > > Systems Planning > > toney at systemsplanning.com > > http://systemsplanning.com > > > > MWeb, CAPS, MARCView, and MARConvert are trademarks of Systems Planning > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer > > Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l > > > > The MCN-L archives can be found at: > > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/ > > > > > > >
