[WEB4LIB] RE: Seattletimes.com: Public to taste life without

[Nancy Sosna Bohm]

on 8/20/02 8:37 PM, Andrew I. Mutch at amutch at waterford.lib.mi.us wrote:
> ...How many visitors to SPL's web site are going to get there
> directly through Google's caching feature? I feel safe betting very few....

Yes, Andrew, quite true. Gary seems to have asked the question important to
the effectiveness of blackout:

on 8/20/02 8:18 PM, gary at gprice at gwu.edu wrote:

> ...Another question, if a web searcher were to access the page with links
> to remotely accessible subscription databases via SPL
> (http://www.spl.org/selectedsites/subscriptions.html), will these links be
> disconnected?...




on 8/20/02 8:37 PM, Andrew I. Mutch at amutch at waterford.lib.mi.us wrote:

> Whether Google or other sites cache SPL's pages really doesn't seem to
> matter. How many visitors to SPL's web site are going to get there
> directly through Google's caching feature? I feel safe betting very few.
> In all likelihood, whether through links, Google or some other route,
> they'll follow a link that will either 404 or more likely display some
> page explaining why the site is not available. At that point, the educated
> searcher may go through Google or Alexa or some other cache service and
> find the page they want since it appears much of SPL's pages are static.
> But SPL's point has been made and the visitor will realize that SPL's
> content is only available because someone has cached it. I doubt SPL is
> going to want Google to dump their site from the cache when the library
> site will be back up shortly.
> 
> Andrew Mutch
> Library Systems Technician
> Waterford Township Public Library
> Waterford, MI
> 
> 
> On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, gary wrote:
> 
>> Nancy:
>> Google captures a copy of each page* it finds during its crawl and makes the
>> page 
>> available via the Google Cache. If a web site owner doesn't want a page(s)
>> cached, The Washington Post as an example, Google needs to be contacted or
>> the 
>> proper file needs to be placed on the server.
>> 
>> At the moment, Google has approx. 1300 pages from the www.spl.org domain in
>> its 
>> database.  Google Search: <inurl:www.spl.org -inurl:uk).
>> 
>> I browsed through a few pages of results and all had cached versions
>> available. 
>> 
>> So, will SPL ask them to purge the cache? It's a good question.
>> 
>> Another question, if a web searcher were to access the page with links
>> to remotely accessible subscription databases via SPL
>> (http://www.spl.org/selectedsites/subscriptions.html), will these links be
>> disconnected?
>> 
>> 
>> Finally, other search engines are caching pages. The very new Gigablast also
>> caches content. http://www.gigablast.com
>> Example of Cache:
>> http://www.gigablast.com/cgi/0.cgi?n=10&ns=2&sd=0&q=%22seattle+public+library
>> %22
>> 
>> 
>> *Google crawls and caches the first 110k of a web pages. If a page is longer,
>> it's truncated at the 110 mark.  According to Greg Notess, Google truncates
>> most 
>> pdf files at "about 120k".
>> http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/new.shtml#may18
>> 
>> cheers,
>> gary
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Quoting Nancy Sosna Bohm <plum at ulink.net>:
>> 
>>> Without knowing off-hand anything about the programming behind Google's
>>> 'cached page' feature, I am now wondering if the Seattle public libraries'
>>> pages would be viewable via Google, and if so, if Google would be considered
>>> in such an instance to be comparable to a 'scab worker' during a strike?
>>> 
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Karen G. Schneider" <kgs at bluehighways.com>
>>>> ...it is imperative
>>>> that the Web site be "shuttered."  Anything less is misleading and
>>>> unfair to both your staff and your community....
>>> 
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: <jwang_94121 at yahoo.com>
>>>> ...When Seattle public libraries go dark for a week next Monday, the
>>> closure will have far more chilling implications than a late-summer
>>> "furlough" might on the surface suggest. For a variety of...
>>>> 
>>>> Full story:
>>> http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?s
>>> lug=paul19&date=20020819
>>>> ...
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> 
>> Gary D. Price, MLIS
>> Librarian
>> Gary Price Library Research and Internet Consulting
>> gary at freepint.com
>> 
>> The Virtual Acquisition Shelf and News Desk
>> http://resourceshelf.freepint.com
>> 
> 
>