[WEB4LIB] Re: Appropriate Organizational Scheme for Diverse Web

[Julia Schult]

Richard Wiggins wrote:

> I agree with your advice, but, for the record: Yahoo was founded by two
> Stanford electrical engineering graduate students with zero library
> training. In fact, they approached a friend of mine, a librarian with an MLS
> and lots of online experience, before they launched their business, and
> asked her for help in "building a catalog of the entire Internet." She told
> them it was an impossible task, that only a selective catalog was possible,
> and they needed to rethink their goals. They built the basic Yahoo model
> with little if any traditional library expertise.
>
> Of course the rest is history. The Yahoo founders are billionaires, and the
> first librarian they did hire is the richest librarian on the planet,
> according to The New York Times. My friend rues her too-realistic
> assessment.
>

I notice they took the advice of the librarian they consulted to heart:  they do
only index part of the web, and they did rethink their goals, at least to define
them a little bit better.  So I don't think her answer was completely useless.

Richard Wiggins wrote:

> What they built bears little resemblance to most traditional catalogs
> previously built in the library world. They made it far simpler. In fact I
> claim it's a pretty poor catalog despite its enormous business success...
>
> /rich

I would argue that Yahoo! is not simpler than a "regular" catalog, although it
may appear to be.  It differs from an index in that indexes main function is to
alphabetize the categories.  And I think it is actually more complex than a
"regular" catalog because of the hierarchy, which reaches several levels.  Most
catalogs only have about three levels of hierarchy.

So here's an idea from the "regular" catalog; why don't they cross-reference the
categories in Yahoo?  I guess the keyword finding does that for them.

As far as the quality of the product, I have stopped using Yahoo! regularly and
currently my favorite three are Google, Northern Light and IxQuick.  My
favorites are fluid, so Yahoo! could still recapture me...  Although I have
noticed that I no longer use any of the directory engines.  Northern Light's
dynamic "directory" system seems to be the only use of the hierarchical concept
that works very well in the current web environment.  It could use some
improvements, of course.

I should stick an IMHO somewhere in that paragraph...  or perhaps an IMNSHO...
;-)

In summary:  Yes, we had to be jolted out of our cosy little LC world, and
Yahoo! did a lot to accomplish that.  However, since then most of us have
hopefully picked up the slack in our reins and are riding madly to keep up with
the information race.

---Julia E. Schult
Access/Electronic Services Librarian
Elmira College
Jschult at elmira.edu