Re: Dewey Decimal Web Searching

["Timothy Glenn Stockstill" <timothy at stockstill.com>]

With the commercialization of the Internet, a
wealth of publicly available information has
come into being.

Thus far now organization system has truly
been defined in order to accommodate this.

I believe that Scott's suggestion has substantial
merit.  An organization system needs to be adopted.
Random Page Content Scans performed by search 
engines, or KEYWORDS are not sufficiently revealing.
This is generally event from the results returned
by most search query requests (which far to 
frequently return hundreds of results, only 
a small number which is useful to the user -
if any).  This situation is not improving as
Index systems become tasked with more content.

It is quite possible that the LOC system does
not accommodate the entire wealth of information 
available on the Internet (eg. what is the LOC # 
to locate a regional car dealer), HOWEVER it is
a very good start.  And provides a base upon
which new categories could be built.

There are a number of professional organizations
which represent the NEEDS of web Developers
(HWG for example) who could be convinced to
come on board with this, and provide a guide
which web developers could use to determine
how to properly categorize a page under
the proposed system.  

A large number of web developers are utilizing
software to assist in the page layout (FrontPage,
NOF, etc.)  The developers of these products
could further be convinced to modify there 
application to assist the developer with this
categorization.  However before that would
ever come to pass, a fully evolved system would
have to be designed.  I know that I would
not start a major addition of a product based on
a work in progress.

This standardization will have to come from
a respectable standards body, such as IETF
and most likely (IETF with co-operation of
W3C).

With regards to the user needing to know the
LOC (or Dewey) numbers, That is not necessary,
the Search engine could be (and the successful 
ones will, if such a system existed) crafted 
to guide the user to the information they need.

If you enter a good Metropolitan Library, you
have a Card Catalog to help you (and instructions
on how to use it).  As web based search engines are
interactive they could be designed to accommodate 
this with even greater facility.


In summery....

Although, This will be a significant undertaking 
(in that the LOC or Dewey system would have to 
be grown to accommodate more that just stored 
knowledge, but also the wealth of opportunities
available on todays internet), is almost 
certainly an NECISSARY undertaking and investment.

It may be best for a small (unofficial committee)
to be developed to begin organizing this, and
present a refined specification to the IETF (and
simultaneously to W3C) of what is being requested,
and how best to accomplish it.

I am interested pursuing this, and would like
to find others that think it would be beneficial.

I do understand that some may have objections to
the utilization of time on this project, I would
request that they reserve judgment and comment 
until a (informal specification could be 
developed, and then offer there input at that 
time.)


All interested parties can contact me directly
for further discussion and evaluation.


Timothy Glenn Stockstill
Chief Executive Officer
Digital Republic Information Systems, Inc.
mailto:timothy at stockstill.com

PS [Scott]: if you like please e-mail 
me directly to discuss this further.


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 8/26/98, at 1:02 AM, Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote: 

>On Sat, 22 Aug 1998 09:30:08 CDT, you said:
>> I have a suggestion for how seperate the wheat from chaff during internet
>> searches.  Web page designers can simply say the word "Dewey" or "LOC" once
>> on their page and follow it with the appropriate Dewey decimal system and/or
>
>Pop quiz time:
>
>(1) What's the Library of Congress number for an Ibanez Artist guitar?
>
>(2) How many hits does AltaVista produce for "Ibanez"?
>
>What is the likelyhood that (a) the producers of the pages in (2) will
>actually add the LOC number to their pages (Hint: make a quick estimate
>of what percentage of the pages are not at Ibanez.com) and (b) the
>likelyhood that either the user or his Web browser will add the LOC
>number to the search?
>
>It's basically the same "critical mass" problem that has been well
>understood by the public health people ever since mass immunization
>started.
>
>
>-- 
>				Valdis Kletnieks
>				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
>				Virginia Tech
>
>
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