A REGIONAL DISTRIBUTED WWW SEARCH AND INDEXING SERVICE - THE DESIRE WAY

In an attempt to implement a regional search engine we have created an open, metadata aware system for distributed, collaborative WWW-indexi ng. The system has three main components: a han,ester (for collecting information), a database (for making the collection searchable), and a user interface (for making the information available). All components can be distributed across networked computers, thus supporting scalab ility. The system is metadata aware and thus allows searches on severa l fields including title, document author, and URL. Nordic Web Index ( NWI) is an application using this system to create a regional Nordic W eb-indexing service. NWI is built using five collaborating service poi nts within the Nordic countries. The NWI databases can be used to buil d additional services. Services today include special metadata databas es, multimedia databases, and statistics about the Nordic Web. (C) 199 8 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.