About

Objectives

HuriSearch is a HURIDOCS project. Its general objective is to facilitate access to human rights information on the web. Its specific objectives are as follows:

To provide human rights professionals with a powerful web research tool.
To increase the visibility of information published by human rights organisations, in particular small local organisations with first-hand information.
To encourage webmasters to use metadata systematically, thus making human rights information searching much more reliable and efficient.

Why is HuriSearch special?

HuriSearch is the only comprehensive search engine specialised in human rights information.

It targets persons working with or interested in human rights, who need powerful search tools to access up-to-date and relevant information including: human rights monitors and researchers, students and academics, diplomats and persons working in international organisations, politicians and journalists.

What are its key advantages?

  • It gives you direct access to the content of over 3000 human rights websites.
  • Currently over 3’200’000 pages have been indexed.
  • It filters out the non-relevant content: only the pages from websites with a main focus on human rights are indexed.
  • It provides fresh information. The crawler visits all sites periodically. The frequency depends on the type of organisation: every 24 hours for the
  • Intergovernmental Organisations, National Human Rights Institutions, and
  • Academic Institutions; every 8 days for the NGO collection
  • It uses powerful drill-down techniques which become indispensable for in-depth searching: search by language, by organisation, by country, and more.
  • It instantly analyses search results and recognizes the prevalent human rights themes – suggesting new and useful search directions.
  • It prominently displays information produced by local grassroots organisations who often produce very relevant first-hand information (these important sources are lost by larger non-specialized search engines).
  • It is completely independent from political or commercial interests – this is guaranteed by HURIDOCS.

Possible ways to use HuriSearch:

  • To search for information on the fate of an individual, the human rights situation in a country, or information about any human rights issue or theme.
  • To search the content of a particular website, perhaps even your own!
  • HuriSearch will probably offer you a more powerful way of searching your own website than the search engine provided by your ISP. HURIDOCS can make a dedicated search box available to webmasters on request.
  • To look for newsletters on a particular topic (just type “newsletter” and the name of your topic), RSS feeds, or even job vacancies.

How does HuriSearch work? How was it developed?

HuriSearch is the fruit of collaboration between FAST and HURIDOCS which started in 2003.

At the core of HuriSearch lies FAST Enterprise Search Platform (FAST ESPTM), a search engine system developed by FAST and made available to HURIDOCS. FAST also provided development time to customize this technology to the needs of the human rights community, and provided free server space for an initial period.

This system is used to index a list of 3000 human rights websites. This list was developed and is maintained by HURIDOCS. The main criterion for inclusion is that “human rights” should be a dominant area of work for the organisation concerned, as expressed on its website.

HURIDOCS and FAST worked together to integrate search functions most useful to human rights search, such as the HURIDOCS index terms. A first version was launched in 2003. This was replaced by the current version, which was in beta phase from October 2005 to June 2006. It is now mature for launch, and will be gradually launched over the period July to December 2006 (a formal ceremony will be held on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2006).

hurilogo(Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, International) was established in 1982, and is a decentralised global network of organisations concerned with human rights information. It brings together professionals in the management of human rights information – such as monitoring and fact-finding practitioners, documentalists and librarians, IT engineers – to work on information management tools which are then made available to the whole human rights community. HURIDOCS Website

fastlogois a world leader in enterprise search solutions. FAST provides businesses and government organisations with the ability to intelligently and dynamically, access, retrieve and analyse information in real time. FAST website

Special applications

A special application of HuriSearch was developed for the Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Information System of the Office for Democratic Insitutions and Human Rights of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, allowing users to find NGO information on key issues such as Anti-Semitism, Freedom of religion or belief and Gender-based discrimination.

Organisations interested in developing their own customised HuriSearch applications can contact HURIDOCS to discuss their specific requirements.

HURIDOCS mailing lists

HURIDOCS and other subscribers to the HURIDOCS mailing list can exchange news on issues related to information and documentation handling in the field of human rights.

You can also subscribe to the huridocs-tech list on using new technologies for Human Rights work, by sending the message “subscribe huridocs-tech ” to [email protected].

More information about HuriSearch and HURIDOCS
Links to more information about HuriSearch

  • HuriSearch brochure in English (2 pages – PDF)
  • HuriSearch brochure in French (2 pages – PDF)
  • HuriSearch brochure in Spanish (2 pages – PDF
  • HuriSearch brochure in English (5 pages – Word)

Reviews and articles on HuriSearch

  • Review by Dr. Susan Maret, Charleston Adviser
  • Review by Lars Vage, Pandia Search Engine News
  • International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), HuriSearch: a dynamic new search human rights engine built on global collaboration
    www.HuriSearch.org – A Search Engine for Human Rights Information by
  • Bert Verstappen, published in the Journal of Social Science Education (JSSE), October 2006
  • Search engine aids human rights workers, on the BBC News Website, Technology section

Links to more information about HURIDOCS

  • HURIDOCS main Website
  • HURIDOCS leaflet in English (2 pages – PDF)
  • HURIDOCS leaflet in French (2 pages – PDF)
  • HURIDOCS leaflet in Spanish (2 pages – PDF)
  • Download HURIDOCS tools
  • Leaflets and brochures about HURIDOCS