Searching Systems and Internet Resources Directories on the Regional Level

Stepanov V.K.

Russia, Moscow,
Moscow State University of Culture and Arts

Enormous increasing the volume of data in Internet sharpens the problem of information search. To find information the users utilize resource directories and search systems; the first provide consistent acknowledging different spheres of knowledge, the second provide a detailed search within the full texts of documents.

At present there exists means of search of three regional levels: global, national and local. They orient in resources of all the world (Yahoo!, Altavista, Northern Sight, Hot Bot), of a country or group of countries (for Russia - Au!, Yandex, Rambler, Aport) and different regions within the country. For Russia, alongside with national search instruments, local navigation means have a great significance since search systems of two higher levels don't reflect to the full the contents of local Internet-servers. A great deal of data remain unaccountable and then unaccessible for users because of limited hardware and software provision and high volume of work It is related to the materials, arranged on local servers and loosely linked with outside magistral sights.

This drawback is easily destroyed through creating navigation means of regional, territorial and republican levels, the goal of which is in comprehensive account of documents really existing at the local servers. In Russian Internet nowadays comprises several tens of regional search instruments. The most famous are directories Yahoo-Krasnoyarsk (http://yahoo.kts.ru), "All Ekaterinburg" (http://all.ekaterinburg.com:8081), "Tver Region Catalogue" (http://catalog.tver.ru), "Tatarstan in Internet" (http://www.kcn.ru/tatweb/grepsrch/srch.cgi/tatweb/tatweblist), search system on Nizhny Novgorod (http://www.rambler.nnov.ru), Perm (http://search.perm.ru), Tver (http://www.search.tver.ru) regions, and Udmurtia (http://search.udm.net). Their producers and owners are as a rule local service-providers, striving to attract attention to their servers of as many users as possible.

Testing these systems has shown that regional directories provide much more information on local resources than national ones. Search systems guarantee practically comprehensive indexation of documents from local servers, which allows to appreciate them as a very valuable addition to national search navigators.

In future the number of local servers will be increasing as the volume of Internet-resources will be growing to "critical mass" which leads to information chaos.

But if the creation of navigation instruments doesn't employ much time and labour as they are built on the analogy with the existing ones then making a directory requires a lot of efforts and intellectual spenditures. In this case it will be useful to examine the experience of libraries with local lore materials.

The existing scheme of classification and methods of finding and bibliographing the materials may be taken into account. The close connection between libraries and navigation server owners will ensure the directories should become a powerful professional means of new information environment and at the same time will help libraries guarantee their position as active participants in this context.

The whole system of accounting of all resources will be completed by the creating navigation means of local and regional levels in all places of Russia during 1,5-2 years. This system will provide reliable monitoring of netpotential of the country, enable information resources to be maximally available for the users.