WAIS

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Wide Area Information Servers
WAIS

   <networking, information science> (WAIS) A distributed
   information retrieval system.  WAIS is supported by {Apple
   Computer}, {Thinking Machines} and Dow Jones.  {Clients} are
   able to retrieve documents using keywords.  The search returns
   a list of documents, ranked according to the frequency of
   occurrence of the keyword(s) used in the search.  The client
   can retrieve text or {multimedia} documents stored on the
   {server}.  WAIS offers simple {natural language} input,
   indexed searching for fast retrieval, and a "relevance
   feedback" mechanism which allows the results of initial
   searches to influence future searches.  It uses the {ANSI
   Z39.50} service.  {Public domain} implementations are
   available.

   Other information retrieval systems include {archie},
   {Gopher}, {Prospero}, and {World-Wide Web}.

   Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.infosystems.wais.

   {Telnet (telnet://sunsite.unc.edu)}.

   (1995-03-13)