We have built an HTTP based resource discovery system called Discover that provides a
single point of access to over 500 WAIS servers. Discover provides two key services: query
refinement and query routing. Query refinement helps a user improve a query fragment to
describe the user's interests more precisely. Once a query has been refined and describes a
manageable result set, query routing automatically forwards the query to the WAIS servers
that contain relevant documents. Abbreviated descriptions of WAIS sites called content …