Drake Equation for the web

[Jerry Kuntz]

While preparing for a talk on collecting Internet resources, I wanted a
dramatic way to illustrate the managability of such projects in the face of
the often overwhelming number of new web sites and Internet growth.
Therefore, with apologies to Frank Drake and Carl Sagan, who developed a
famous equation for calculating the number of intelligent technological
civilizations in the galaxy, [and with tongue in cheek] I offer the Kuntz
Equation:

Sc=Wp x fs x ft x fg x fi x fu

where
Sc is the number of web sites worth cataloging
Wp is the total number of web pages on the Internet
fs is the fraction of those pages that constitute distinct web sites
ft is the fraction of web sites with  topical informational content
fg is the fraction of sites with accurate, current, comprehensive,
well-maintained, and well-designed content
fi is the fraction of sites that are findable, i.e. have been indexed in
robot engines or announced in current awareness tools
and fu is the fraction that haven't been moved or pulled down since being
indexed or announced.

You can plug in your own values into this equation; for the sake of argument
I plugged in values that resulted in a figure for Sc that was less than half
the number of bib records in our local union catalog.

Jerry Kuntz
Ramapo Catskill Library System
jkuntz at rcls.org