The entire AGRIS data from 1975 to date is now available

The new AGRIS search application gives the user the possibility to search the entire AGRIS database, comprising 2.3 millions bibliographic references, stored in the AGRIS XML format. This completely new interface exploits the advantages of both open-source full text search engine APIs (Lucene), and structured XML. The result is an extremely fast application, as with a Google query language but with the potential to formulate highly complex queries. The former AGRIS search application developed 7 years ago, was based on a technology that was the "state of the art" then, but is now obsolete. The new AGRIS search application is based on open source technology which can be easily further developed.

After the release of version 1.0, we are preparing a smaller update for autumn that will increase the usability of the search assistant. At the beginning of 2007 we will include semantic search improvements that exploit the use of AGROVOC in AGRIS. The released AGRIS search application has a very simple function that transfers the title of a selected reference into Google and searches the Internet for this resource. If the resource has been published electronically and has been indexed by Google it will be retrieved, but if not the Google will return no result or irrelevant results. In the future versions, we will work on the use of other metadata to refine the Google search in the retrieval of full text documents.

We would be happy to receive your feedback including requests of more functionality and reports on bugs that can help improve the AGRIS Search application as soon as possible.