[WEB4LIB] RE: Yahoo-OCLC toolbar

[Jim Campbell]

As I said in the section you didn't excerpt, criticism may well be due for
deploying and publicizing it too early.  Since this service will be used far
more in its final state after the initial crawl than it will be in the next
month and since most of the announcements made it clear that the data is
still incomplete, I don't think it's asking too much to wait before making
judgments based on the data. My opinion, feel free to criticize it.

What I really want people to do is act, not just criticize. You can opt out,
you can get searching working for your library, you can convey to OCLC that
they've gone too far in protecting their data and eliminated some important
search options. And you can commend them for making an effort, albeit a
flawed effort, to increase the visibility of libraries at a time when we
need it. If I can  get any of those things done, either by encouraging
someone or by pissing somebody off, it was a good post. And since the
moderator is probably going to tell me to stop this thread, I will now.

   - Jim Campbell
   E-mail: campbell at virginia.edu

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "K.G. Schneider" <kgs at bluehighways.com>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <>
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 7:36 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: Yahoo-OCLC toolbar


> > I'd like some changes and I agree with the earlier comments that
> > RedLightGreen is a more interesting product for the future of libraries,
> > but
> > getting information about library holdings into the major search engines
> > is
> > worthwhile too as helping to ensure that libraries have a future. In the
> > meantime, if you really don't like the way it works, you should persuade
> > your library either to opt out or to get an opac link in there.
> >
> > - Jim Campbell
> > Campbell at Virginia.edu
>
> Um... I thought we were having a discussion about this new tool, and
> (speaking as a Web4Lib subscriber and not wearing any other hat) it was my
> impression that critical discussion of the Yahoo-OCLC toolbar was
something
> we were attempting.
>
> Here's what happened. A tool was deployed... a press release went out...
we
> are looking at it and responding. That is exactly what the companies want
us
> to do, quite frankly; we're providing free assessment. We can't respond
> based on what we think the tool will do, only on how it performs and on
the
> larger ramifications of its availability to the wide world of information.
> If it wasn't ready for us to discuss it, then it should not have been
> formally announced, but I don't think Yahoo and OCLC would be unhappy to
> read our comments.
>
> Perhaps we can take a deep breath and remember that Web4Lib is a good
forum
> for constructive criticism of new Web tools 4 Libs.
>
> Karen G. Schneider
> kgs at bluehighways.com
>
>
>
>
>