The following meeting may be of interest to some people. Apologies for any 
cross-posting.

British Computer Society Electronic Publishing Specialist Group
Metasearching: better searching? Oxford, 22 July 2004

Synopsis

WHEN SEARCH ENGINES WERE INVENTED, many people thought the problems of 
information management were over. We know today that the problem only moved 
elsewhere. For example: content, especially online content, doesn’t sit 
conveniently in a single repository; it is typically distributed across 
many collections. Secondly, searching is for a purpose, and integrated 
computing allows the searcher seamlessly to make use of their search 
results in a different environment.

Metasearching is a collective term for tools of this kind that aid 
searching and make it more powerful.

This one-day conference looks at recent developments in metasearching. Open 
to non-members, the meeting will draw on best-case examples of theory and 
practice, and will be of interest to several sectors, including publishing, 
libraries, commercial organisations and education – in fact anyone who 
could benefit from integrating information retrieval more closely with 
their business.

Speakers

Andy Powell of UKOLN, presenting an overview of metasearching in general.

James Culling from ExLibris, one of the market leaders in this area.

John Davidson of Sentient Learning UK, discussing the integration of course 
management systems, library systems, OpenURL resolvers and content 
repositories.

Hillary Ollerenshaw of North Bristol NHS Trust, presenting the 
Knowledge4Health portal that they have developed with Fretwell Downing.

Chris Knowles of Magus Research, talking about streamlining and refining 
searching for providing company information in financial sectors, using 
ontologies and natural language tools.

Martin Kelly of Institute of Physics Publishing, on information clustering 
and natural-language retrieval.

Venue & times

The conference will be held in the Said Business Centre in Oxford – just 
opposite Oxford rail station. There is an online map available, which also 
shows locations for car parking.

The conference starts at 10:00 am and continues until about 5:00 pm, with 
an hour's break for lunch and two refreshment breaks (an excellent lunch 
and refreshments are included in the meeting fee). We will be ready to 
receive you for registration and refreshments from 9:30 am.

For more information, any updates and a booking form, please see:

http://www.epsg.org.uk/meetings/metasearch2004/index.html

David Penfold

PS. Please note in your diary that the next meeting will be on Colour and 
will be held on 8 September at the London College of Communication 
(formerly the London College of Printing) at the Elephant and Castle, London.

-- 
Dr David Penfold, Chairman and administrator
British Computer Society Electronic Publishing Specialist Group
Edgerton Publishing Services
Jasmine Cottage, Elm Lane, Pett, Hastings, East Sussex TN35 4JD, UK
Tel +44 1424 813003; Fax +44 1424 813301; Mobile +44 7850 058544
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