[Web4lib] google & library catalogs

[arhyno at uwindsor.ca]

>Has anyone allowed a search engine to crawl their catalog?  What impact
>did it have on the performance?  Does your library have a policy about
>search engines crawling your catalog?  What factors influenced your
>decision?

If the intent is to get students aware of library resources when they are 
doing general google searches, a better approach might be to use google 
desktop and a custom plugin. This would only probably be feasible for your 
public machines in the library, unless the plugin is extremely seamless, 
but google desktop inserts local searches above general searches. You have 
to be devious about how you set up a plugin to do something like this, or 
your IT folks will not be happy, but it is feasible with enough 
groundwork.

art
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Art Rhyno
Systems Librarian
Leddy Library, University of Windsor
http://librarycog.uwindsor.ca