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(Click image to enlarge graphic.) While the OASIS Search Web Services TC is currently working towards reconciling SRU and OpenSearch, I thought it would be useful to share here a simple graphic outlining how a search web service for structured search might be architected. Basically there are two views of this search web service (described in separate XML description files and discoverable through autodiscovery links added to HTML pages):

We just registered in the SRU (Search and Retrieve by URL) search registry the following components: Context Sets PRISM Context Set version 2.0 PRISM Context Set version 2.1 Schemas PRISM Aggregator Message Record Schema Version 2.0 PRISM Aggregator Message Record Schema Version 2.1 This means that an SRU (Search and Retrieve by URL) search engine that supported one of the PRISM context sets registered above could accept CQL (Contextual Query Language) queries such as the following:

As posted here on the SRU Implementors list, the OASIS Search Web Services Technical Committee has announced the release of five Committee Drafts, informally known as: Abstract Protocol Definition (APD) Binding for SRU 1.2 Auxiliary Binding for HTTP GET CQL 1.2 Binding for OpenSearch Links to specific document formats are given at the bottom of the mail. A list of the TC public documents is also available here. The next phase of work for the TC will be the development of SRU/CQL 2.

Interesting post from Yahoo! Search’s Director of Product Management, Priyank Garg, “One Standard Fits All: Robots Exclusion Protocol for Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft“. Interesting also for what it doesn’t talk about. No mention here of ACAP.

The recently discussed (announced?) Google Knol project could make Google Scholar look like a tiny blip in the the scholarly publishing landscape. I love the comment an authority: “Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content.

The OASIS Search Web Services TC has just put out the following document for public review (Nov 7- Dec 7, 2007): _Search Web Services v1.0 Discussion Document Editable Source: http://docs.oasis-open.org/search-ws/v1.0/DiscussionDocument.doc PDF: http://docs.oasis-open.org/search-ws/v1.0/DiscussionDocument.pdf HTML: http://docs.oasis-open.org/search-ws/v1.0/DiscussionDocument.html From the OASIS announcement: “This document: “Search Web Services Version 1.0 - Discussion Document - 2 November 2007”, was prepared by the OASIS Search Web Services TC as a strawman proposal, for public review, intended to generate discussion and interest.

ACAP has released some documents outlining the use cases they will be testing and some proposed changes to the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP) - both robots.txt and META tags. There are some very practical proposals here to improve search engine indexing. However, the only search engine publicly participating in the project is http://www.exalead.com/ (which according to Alexa attracted 0.0043% of global internet visits over the last three months). The main docs are “ACAP pilot Summary use cases being tested”, “ACAP Technical Framework - Robots Exclusion Protocol - strawman proposals Part 1”, “ACAP Technical Framework - Robots Exclusion Protocol - strawman proposals Part 2”, “ACAP Technical Framework - Usage Definitions - draft for pilot testing”.

From Ray Denenberg’s post to the SRU Listserv yesterday: _“The new SRU web site is now up: http://www.loc.gov/sru/ It is completely reorganized and reflects the version 1.2 specifications. (It also includes version 1.1 specifications, but is oriented to version 1.2.) … There is an official 1.1 archive under the new site, https://web.archive.org/web/20080724063403/http://www.loc.gov/sru/sru1-1archive/. And note also, that the new spec incorporates both version 1.1 and 1.2 (anything specific to version 1.1 is annotated as such).

OASIS has just announced a technical committee for standardising search services. This from the Call for Participation: _ b. Purpose To define Search and Retrieval Web Services, combining various current and ongoing web service activities. Within recent years there has been a growth in activity in the development of web service definitions for search and retrieval applications. These include SRU, a web service based in part on the NISO/ISO Search and Retrieval standards;

Update: All apologies to Google. Apparently this was a problem at our end which our IT folks are currently investigating. (And I thought it was just me. 🙂 Just managed to get this page: _“Google Error We’re sorry… … but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now. We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon.