Preferred Listings on Open Text -Reply

[Dan Lester]

I don't see why anybody should be in an uproar
about the decision made by OpenText to put ads in
their directory.  The Yellow Pages, Thomas
Register, and others have been doing it for years. 
Will some dummies be fooled?  Maybe, but so
what.  That just is NOT MY PROBLEM.  As a
librarian my job is to evaluate materials and decide
which ones to present to my patrons.  Do I present
opentext to my patrons?  No.  No reason to.  If they
did something useful for me that no other search
engine did, I probably would, and would live with the
ads.  Heavens, we all live with ads on the other
search engines.  The opentext ones may imply
something else to the ignorant viewer, just as a
listing in the Gorman book that "ranks" graduate
programs (which I hope NONE of us have in our
libraries) may suggest some untrue things to an
ignorant reader.  

But, I'm sure not about to waste my time telling
OpenText how to run their business.  If it works for
them, fine.  If it doesn't, not my problem, oh well,
good riddance.  We'll see search engine outfits
dropping out soon....probably in the next half dozen
webyears at the most...which is of course no
different than happens in any other new area of
enterprise.  

If there is ANYTHING we need to teach our users, it
is that ANY rankings by any search engines, or
ANY "best of the web lists" or similar are rough
guesses at best, and only slightly more valuable
than the electrons they're printed on.

dan


Dan Lester, Network Information Coordinator
Boise State University Library, Boise, Idaho, 83725
USA
voice: 208-385-1235   fax:  208-385-1394
dlester at bsu.idbsu.edu     OR   
alileste at idbsu.idbsu.edu
Cyclops' Internet Toolbox:    http://cyclops.idbsu.edu
"How can one fool make another wise?"   Kansas,
1979.