> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle
> Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 10:37 AM
> BTW, the recently announced book catalog at the Internet Archive
> (http://demo.openlibrary.org) uses stemming software (probably focused
> on English) for its keyword searches. I'd be interested to hear if
> people find it useful, because I find it to be a real nuisance. Ditto
> the automatic stemming and other modifications that Google now uses. I
> find it to be annoying when I'm looking for names and they pull up
> other
> names that are similarly spelled (Michelle, Michele). I'm sure that at
> times it has helped me, but I find that I end up going to Advanced
> Search mainly to turn that off by putting the terms in quotes. There
> should be an easy way to turn stemming on and off. It's not appropriate
> for every search.
I heard rumors that IA is using Solr - VUFind is also built ontop of Solr - which has built in word stemming. Solr makes this completely customizable and has different field types. For example a Text field uses stemming but a String field does not. Also in VUFind - and probably openlibrary - you can use quotes in any search box - basic or advanced.
Solr is quite powerful (speed - flexibility - customizability) and we will see this come true as the web applications that sit on top of if (VUFind, and others) will be able to truly harness all of the power that is available.
Andrew
Received on Mon Jul 23 2007 - 13:02:29 EDT