[WEB4LIB] Searching for AIDS: Google strikes again [Hardin MD Notes]

[Susan Colowick]

Besides ignoring the meaning-based search engines, the study ignored a very
useful feature of AltaVista: if you enter AIDS in caps, it will only
retrieve the upper-case instances.

Susan M. Colowick
North Olympic Library System
Port Angeles, WA
scolowick at nols.org 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Rumsey [mailto:rumsey at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2000 7:05 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] Searching for AIDS: Google strikes again [Hardin MD
> Notes]
> 
> 
> The "dumb computer" behind most search engines is nowhere 
> more in evidence 
> than when doing a search for an ambiguous word such as AIDS. 
> Any reasonably 
> aware human being realizes that a search for "aids" is likely 
> looking for 
> the disease AIDS. But to a search engine, all occurrences of 
> the word are 
> given equal weight. So can a search engine be smart enough to 
> "know" that a 
> search for "aids" is almost certain to be looking for the 
> disease? Until 
> recently, probably not. But new developments are bringing 
> improvements.
> 
> For more see:
> Searching for AIDS: Google strikes again
> http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md/notes6.html
> 
> 
> *	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	
> Eric Rumsey, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences
> University of Iowa, Iowa City IA 52242
> <eric-rumsey at uiowa.edu>
> 319-335-9875 (voice), 319-335-9897 (fax)
> Hardin Meta Directory of Internet Health Sources - Kudos -
> http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/hardin/md/news.html
>