About WAIS - The Wide Area Information Server
 
WAIS is pronounced "ways", and was developed at Thinking Machines
Corporation.
 
WAIS is a database system that exploits two recently popularised
computer science concepts: the client-server model, and full-text
databases.  It gives the ability for users to search existing
databases of articles, books, references, abstracts and specialist
information (such as genome databases, usenet group archives, ftp-site
listings, etc), and for people with information to publish it at
little expense and effort over the Internet.
 
The client-server model is a commonly used method of providing
services over a network.  The end-user uses a client program to access
information by communicating with a server program.  Typically the
server and client are running on different machines and communicate
over the network.  You need not have a server of your own to be able
to use the client.
 
The full-text database is a model designed explicitly to search
documents on any word that appears in those documents.  The old
approach was to have a set of keywords which you could search on, and
these words represented a small subset of all the words in the
documents.
 
It is the WAIS client that lets you search databases.  Databases are
provided over networks by WAIS servers.  Servers are available to run
under System V and BSD releases of Unix, VMS, the IBM RS/6000, and the
NeXT.  Client software is available for dumb terminal Unix, curses on
Unix, GNU Emacs, Macintosh (with MacTCP), the NeXT, MS-DOS machines with
and without Windows, as well as VMS, RS/6000, X Windows, OpenLook, Motif
and Sunview. You can get these clients and servers from SunSITE.unc.edu
via anonymous ftp. Look in the pub/wais directory.
 
The fundamental concepts in WAIS are the database, the document, the
source and the hit.  A source is a short text file that describes how
a client can access a database that is provided by a server.  It
typically lists the database name, the machine the server program is
running on, a brief description of the database, the name of the
maintainer of the database, and the cost (if any).
 
A document is the basic unit - when you perform a search and look at
results, you will be looking at documents.  Databases hold lots of
documents, and the server will search all the documents in the
database.  When the server finishes the search, it sends the client a
list of hits - the names of documents that looked like they matched
what you were searching for.  A hit is one document name.
 
The following is a brief guide to the curses-based Unix client on
SunSITE.unc.edu.
 
Telnet to SunSITE.unc.edu and log in as "politics" (do not type the
quotation marks) thus:
login: politics
 
You will not need a password.
 
Then you'll be prompted for your terminal type with the message:
you're probably a vt100 or should be
TERM = (unknown)
You should then type:
vt100
 
You will then be connected to a simple terminal window client program, and
will be presented with a list of names of databases to search (each name
of a database corresponds to a source).
 
You can move through the list of sources with your arrow keys or the j and
k keys.  The question mark (?) key gives you help.  To search for a word
in the database names, you may also use the / key.  For example, /White
will move you quickly to the database relating to White House Papers. A
database so selection will be highlighted. (For instance, SunSITE.unc.edu
offers the "White-House-Paperss" database. Use the arrows or j keys to
highlight that database name if you wish to search it). Once your cursor
is on the source you wish to search press the space bar. (Notice that an *
has been placed beside the selected source). You may choose more than one
source in this manner and search several sources for the same key words at
the same time if you wish.
 
Next press the w key and you wll be prompted to enter keywords on which to
search. Enter the keywords, separated by spaces (for instance, "computers
technology", without quotation marks, would search for the words computers
and technology).
 
Next press the Return key and your search will begin. Friendly and
marginally intelligable messages will appear at the bottom of your screen
as the search precedes.
 
The client then gives you a list of hits - the names of documents that
match your request.  These hits are given a score from 1000 (the highest
or document with the most occurances of the keywords) to 0 (the lowest).
This WAIS client will return only the 40 highest scoring hits. You can
move through the list with the same commands as before.  To view a
document, press Return when the name of the document is highlighted.
Press H for help while viewing the document.  Press 'q' to leave from the
list of documents.
 
To access over 400 WAIS databases on many subjects login as swais instead
of politics.
 
Nat
(gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz -- Nathan Torkington -- is the electronic text and
 MS-DOS archivist for the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)
 
Massively modified and extended for Sunsite by Paul_Jones@unc.edu