The anatomy of a multi-domain search infrastructure

Abstract

Current search engines do not support queries that require a complex combination of information. Problems such as "Which theatre offers an at least-three-stars action movie in London close to a good Italian restaurant" can only be solved by asking multiple queries, possibly to different search engines, and then manually combining results, thereby performing "data integration in the brain." While searching the Web is the preferred method for accessing information in everyday's practice, users expect that search systems will soon be capable of mastering complex queries. However, combining information requires a drastic change of perspective: a new generation of search computing systems is needed, capable of going beyond the capabilities of current search engines. In this paper we show how search computing should open to modular composition, as many other kinds of software computations. We first motivate our work by describing our vision, and then describe how the challenges of multi-domain search are addressed by a prototype framework, whose internal "anatomy" is disclosed. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.