The Galaxy is a guide to worldwide information and services and is
provided as a public service by EINet and Galaxy guest editors. EINet
also provides World Wide Web client software for the Macintosh and
for Windows computers.
Key Links
URL for Front Page:
http://www.einet.net/galaxy.htm
URL for Top-level
Page: http://www.einet.net/galaxy.htm#TOPICS
URL for Forms Search
Page: http://www.einet.net/galaxy.htm#SEARCH
URLs for Non-forms Search Pages:
URL for Copyright Page:
http://lmc.einet.net/copyright.html
URL for Help Page:
http://lmc.einet.net/howto.htm
URL for Authors Page:
http://lmc.einet.net/staff.html
Home Organization:
Enterprise Integration
Network (EINet),
Microelectronics and
Computer Technology Corporation (MCC)
Organization
- The Galaxy is primarily a subject-organized catalog.
- Major and second level topics contain cross-references to
relevant areas. The links on subject pages are grouped into
sections listing relevant collections, discussion groups,
directories, organizations, and much more.
- There are 11 major subject headings, and intermediate pages
contain an average of more than 50 links. The hierarchy is
organized into 3 levels of specificity.
-
The catalog offers several interfaces for searching catalog information,
each page searches a different data set: the text of the Galaxy pages,
the documents catalogued by the Galaxy, the fulltext of World Wide Web
pages, the text of Web links, Gopherspace, and Hytelnet. A
brief summary
of these data sets is provided.
- Searches are performed using a modified FreeWAIS database.
- Features
- Supports Multiple Keywords (implicit Boolean OR)
- Full support for complex Boolean expressions
- Supports truncated keywords (substrings)
- Limitations
- No provisions for a Controlled Vocabulary
- No Proximity Searching
- Documents are sorted by the quality of the match, and the result sets
are limited to discrete amounts from 40 to 240 hits.
- The chosen search interface specifies the data that is searched,
either fulltext or certain portions of the data.
- The catalog offers an HTML Forms search interface, but most document
search pages are not Forms based.
- The server catalogs Internet documents with no restrictions as to content.
Administration
- Documents in the catalog are added by
Guest Editors who maintain
areas of special interest.
- Both the catalog and the search engine interfaces are quite responsive.
- Quality of Index
- Documents are added at the rate of almost 200 a week.
- I could find no dead links, probably because many of the subject
areas are closely maintained by interested guest editors.
- The catalog contains over 100,000 documents.
- There are a large number of search pages, but little preface
material is provided to differentiate between the data sets.
- Additional Services
- The server's Help Page
offers a basic description of the basic search engine, and outlines
useful search strategies for finding data.
- Most pages include a standard "Bookmark Bar" as a navigational aid
for returning to key pages in the catalog.
- The catalog also maintains a
What's New?
page, as well as a
list of
the Most Popular pages on the server.
- Users are encouraged to
register
documents to be catalogued. In fact, the editors are looking for
Guest Editors
to maintain subject areas of special interest.
- Search results include document link, title, match quality, and
the file size of the document.
Evaluation
Example Usage
Demonstrate a sample search session explicitly listing:
- Topic
- Keyword(s), Boolean search controls
- Documents delivered
- Output format
fprefect@umich.edu - 6/12/95