recent discussion of WWW cataloging?

[JQ Johnson]

We've seen rapid evolution in the past year in web search engines and
in the associated economics of providing them.  In the process, though,
my impression is that there's a trend away from global subject catalogs
of the web that are human mediated and informed by the kinds of
knowledge librarians bring to the cataloging effort.  For example,
Yahoo, which was originally the pre-eminient selective subject catalog
of the web now appears to be totally fed by author submissions (you
tell Yahoo you want it to catalog your page, and also describe the
categories).

There are of course countertrends, e.g. clearinghouses for more limited
subject oriented guides (e.g. http://www.lib.umich.edu/chhome.html),
but it seems to me we're seeing a definite shift away from independent
evaluative guides and towards automated or self-evaluative web
indexes.

Is this impression of trends in fact correct?  Is there recent literature
discussing trends in web search facilities?

 JQ Johnson                       office: 115F Knight Library
 Academic Education Coordinator   Internet: jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu
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