Computers in Libraries 07, Wednesday

Marydee Ojala, editor, ONLINE Magazine, "Searching, Finding, and the information professional” (A303)

Check the infotoday.com blog for more information.

Agenda:

1. Searching
2. Finding/findability
3. Search techniques
4. New search technologies
5. Nontextual information
6. The future

Searching:

Information professionals/Librarians “enjoy the ‘thrill of the chase.’ They understand how information is structured and where it is likely to be. They know the intricacies of search engines, and often exchange search tips” and warnings of tips that stopped working (~synonym on Google).

On the flip side, sometimes information professionals forget to stop searching, or don’t know when to quit a search. They also have problems overlooking things due to information overload.

There are so many places to look and so many tools/resources to use that it takes much longer to do a search now.

Finding:

Clients want the answer and do not care about the source. They have a “non-Boolean mindset.”

Info professionals want to find info, as well as seeking, but they care about the source too.

Findability:

This is the flip of finding. Website creators organize their sites, and do other optimizations, to get themselves to the top of the list for what ever searches they want to be on.

Premium content providers' (EBSCO, etc.) findability is expanding into other markets, including pay per view thru a search engine. They are also working at becoming more intuitive and looking more like web searches.

Search is pervasive, but it is unstable and gets gamed. The content has quality issues and our clients need to be educated about these.

Search Techniques:

Traditional techniques like Boolean, Pearl growing (start with key and grow out of it), building blocks (build off of your key ideas/terms), and successive fractions (break large search into smaller parts.

Web techniques use squishy Boolean, where the search engines coding tweaks my Boolean terms. Also need to use invisible web, metadata, and other tools.

New Search Technologies

Personalization:

Web search engines know who you are and what you want, which is great for individuals, but not so great for info professionals who want non-biased, non-personalized results. (It also has problems with people who search a wide range of things for multiple people and/or ideas.

Optimization:

Web search optimizer (SEO) community has a lot for Info professionals to learn from them.

Set your search result preferences to 50 or 100 because the top 10 are more likely to be gamed.

Semantic Clustering:

Contextual searching that tries to match words with multiple meanings to the correct meaning you are searching for. One way to do this is with visible clustering, such as Clusty and Factiva.

Automatic Indexing:

It is good in theory, but works best with human oversight.

Metadata:

It is discredited as a means to drive traffic because of abuses, but it is great in a controlled environment.

Different databases:

Each search engine has a different database. Premium content searches are different from a database producer and an aggregator.

Invisible/Hidden web:

Many formats are no longer hidden, but there is still much that is hidden, especially historical pages and sources, and limited access things.

Nontextual, nontraditional information:

Searches of audio files, video clips, images, blogs, groups, and second life are rather weak. A large problem these face is how to describe or define these things. Media is more often found by viral marketing, told or read about it, not searched for it.

Displaying nontextual information:

EBSCO and Gale’s use of Grokker, and Factiva’s tag clouds are ways to show results in non textual/list ways.

The future

Worst case scenarios:

• A controlled information environment
• Consumerism and entertainment trump research
• Industry consolidation diminishes available information
• High price doesn’t guarantee quality data

Best case scenario:

• Intuitive interfaces
  
• No licensing wars
  
• Information is accessible and available
  
• Producers are profitable
  
• Searchers are satisfied
  
• Searching and finding coalesce