Nestor Smart Search (Beta)

We're piloting a new way to search the Nestor bibliography: Nestor Smart Search, now available in beta.
The regular Nestor search is — and remains — the right tool when you know exactly what you're looking for: a specific author, a known title, a particular year. Smart Search is built for the opposite situation: when you have a topic in mind but aren't sure of the exact wording a title might use, or you're exploring a subject you don't yet know the literature for. Think of it as the difference between looking something up in a card catalog and browsing the stacks — both are useful, just for different moments in your research.
What makes it different:
Rather than matching only the literal words you type, Smart Search tries to understand what a search is actually about. A search for "dog burial," for instance, can surface directly relevant studies on canine sacrifice and interment practices even when their titles don't use that exact phrase — including titles in other languages. Results are ranked by how closely they match the meaning of your search, not by date, so you may see a foundational older work ranked above a more recent one. That's expected, not a bug.
A note on how it works:
Smart Search runs entirely on our own server. No search terms or bibliography data are sent to any outside AI company or cloud service, and it isn't a chatbot — it doesn't write, summarize, or generate anything. It uses a small language model purely to judge which existing bibliography entries best match the meaning of what you typed.
What to expect from a beta:
This is an early release, and it has real limitations:
• It currently searches titles only — not authors, dates, or journals. A search like "Bennett Pylos" won't find Bennett's work the way the regular search would; try just "Pylos," or a topic Bennett wrote about, instead.
• It's sensitive to capitalization — "Pylos" and "pylos" can return different results. Capitalizing proper nouns as you normally would tends to work best.
• Coverage and ranking will keep improving as we test it against real searches.
The regular Nestor search isn't going anywhere — Smart Search is an addition, not a replacement, and both will remain available.
Try it: Nestor Smart Search (Beta)
We'd genuinely like to hear how it goes — what worked, what didn't, and what felt surprising. If a search gives you an odd or unhelpful result, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
-John Wallrodt