I just started to play with the recently-released teipublisher
(http://teipublisher.sourceforge.net/docs/index.php).

Created for TEI texts, it can also accept any other DTD. Display results are
not as fancy as CDL's XTF, but really easy to set up if you're a
non-programmer.

John
John P. Rees, MA, MLIS
Curator, Archives and Modern Manuscripts
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20894

Phone: 301.496.8953
Fax: 301.402.7034


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alison Hinderliter [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 10:26 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Search Engine poll results
>
>
> Hi list,
>
> Well, I received several very helpful responses, and about
> twice as many requests for those responses, which indicates
> to me that I am not alone in my quest for the perfect search
> engine. Here are the responses I received, edited and
> summarized:
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
> Access to Archives (http://www.a2a.org.uk/) uses TEXTML
> Server - see
> http://www.ixiasoft.com/default.asp?xml=/xmldocs/webpages/text
> ml-server.xml
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> I've been working with a programmer at OhioLINK, testing DLXS
> and PLEADE with EAD finding aids, as part of a project to
> establish an EAD repository for institutions in the state of
> Ohio. Both products are continuously in development, so many
> of the things mentioned below may change.
>
> These sites give more information about the technical
> requirements for the two search engines, along with licensing
> information for DLXS:
>
> http://www.dlxs.org/
> http://www.pleade.org/en/
>
> DLXS is a for-purchase product, with license restrictions.
> OhioLINK already uses it for e-books, the application for
> which it was originally designed. DLXS has produced a
> finding aids class, with plans to develop it further. Its
> delivery of EAD was successful and the presentation of
> finding aids was clear, but currently, the ability to change
> and customize headings and other display elements is very
> limited. Changes like these have to be made at a low level
> of code, which would cause big problems each time there is a
> new release. Since our focus is on designing a format that
> can be agreed upon by various institutions from across the
> state, flexibility in presentation is essential.
> Fortunately, DLXS's next release will incorporate XSLT. They
> have emphasized that this will enable local users to
> customize displays much more easily, and without having to
> edit CGI code.
>
> PLEADE has the advantages of being free, open-source, and
> designed specifically for EAD. The OhioLINK programmer has
> found it very easy to customize display elements. It
> provides detailed results, focusing on each component record,
> with navigational features that establish context, moving
> from the specific component level up through to the
> collection <unittitle>. I have found that some users think
> the component-level records are too isolated from the
> document as a whole, while others like the specificity, and
> find it easy to navigate to the larger document (none of the
> users were archivists, incidentally, so neither group had any
> privileged knowledge of finding aids). The PLEADE developers
> are working on a module that will allow users to present
> context in different ways, so we may try that once it's
> ready. We've found that our current PLEADE setup is slow in
> loading finding aids with more than 1,000 <c>-level records.
> The OhioLINK programmer is trying a couple of diff! erent
> methods of speeding things up. PLEADE was developed in
> France; being able to read French is a big help in following
> the documentation (some, but not all, of which has been
> translated into English) and the ongoing discussions of its
> development and implementation.
>
> -Amy McCrory, OSU
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> ______________________________
>
> Duke University has been using DynaWeb since 1995, and due to
> the fact that DynaWeb is no longer being supported, Duke
> staff are looking at several other software tools, including:
>
> DLXS: http://www.dlxs.org/
> PLEADE: http://www.pleade.org/
> LEADERS: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/leaders-project/
> Archivists Toolkit: http://euterpe.bobst.nyu.edu/toolkit/
> Lucene: http://lucene.apache.org/java/docs/
> Xindice: http://xml.apache.org/xindice/
> SleepyCat: http://www.sleepycat.com/products/xml.shtml
> Cheshire: http://www.cheshire3.org/
> Swish-e: http://swish-e.org/
> Harvest: http://harvest.sourceforge.net/harvest/doc/index.html
> eXist: http://exist.sourceforge.net/
> Greenstone: http://www.greenstone.org/
> XTF: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/xtf/
>
> Some of these seem to be on the verge of obsolescence
> themselves, others are still in development, and others seem
> to only provide the searching part of the solution without
> having a sophisticated way to display search results to
> browsers or permit simple browsing.
>
> XTF from the California Digital Library is looking promising
> because it appears to be a comprehensive solution, has been
> implemented successfully at CDL, is open source, and has a
> very well thought out architecture.
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> ___________________________
>
> Thanks to all of those who responded! If anyone else on the
> list has comments about any of these search tools, feel free
> to share them with me. At our institution, we are looking
> for an inexpensive solution. We just found out we're getting
> WebFeat for free through a cooperative network, and we'll
> look into using that too. WebFeat is a federated search
> engine from Dynix. I have no experience with federated search
> engines so I have no idea how well it will work yet.
>
> -Alison Hinderliter
>
> ************************************************
> Alison Hinderliter - [log in to unmask]
> Project Archivist
> The Newberry Library
> 60 W. Walton St.
> Chicago, IL 60610-7324
> (312) 255-3694
>