Anthony Beavers, an associate professor of philosophy and religion at the University of Evansville in Indiana, was frustrated by the general nature of the major Web search engines. Beaver's search for information related to "Plato" using Infoseek returned 1,506 hits; Lycos found 4,042 entries; Alta Vista claimed more than 10,000; and Excite reported 27,544.
Of the first 10 Infoseek hits, only five sites were related to the philosopher Plato, including one item on the city of Atlantis. The others referred to a couple of software packages with the same name. The successful hits also included an ale named Plato, a guide to business opportunities in Ireland, and even a novel called the "Lizard of Oz," according to Beavers.
Beavers turned his frustration into new Web search software -- a limited area search engine (LASE). With the LASE tool, Beavers created a search site called Argos that is devoted to information on the ancient world and the contents of which are reviewed by a scholarly editorial board.
"Argos ranges somewhere between common smaller engines that are limited to a single site and larger ones -- like Alta Vista, for instance -- that search the whole net," Beavers said. "We range in between because we cover many sites, but only the ones that a professional board of editors designates. This allows users access to the ancient world Web, regardless of where the specific sites are located."
To maintain the integrity of the information on the ancient and medieval worlds that Argos searches, Beavers established a protocol based on an editorial board whose members control the content of "associate sites." The list of sites limits Argos to the ancient world, and the editorial board maintains the quality of the index by approving a small set of associate sites and the sites they link to.
The Argos peer-review system is based on an "accreditation" model, rather than a "referee" model; editorial board members accredit other sites by including them in their indices. If these sites fall below the standards established by the board, they are removed from the associate site and, at the same time, from the Argos search window.
"Hiten Sonpal wrote the software that runs Argos based on conversations during which we both came up with an algorithm," Beavers said. "We are still modifying the code, but are willing to share the final product with others." To establish a dialog on the LASE technology, Beavers has created a mailing list that he encourages others to participate in.
For more information, see the Argos Web site at http://argos.evansville.edu, contact Anthony Beavers at tb2@evansville.edu, or subscribe to the LASE mailing list, lase@evansville.edu, by sending the message "subscribe lase" to majordomo@evansville.edu.
Copyright 1996 SDSCwire.