[WEB4LIB] Re: library marketing was RE: Google Mail invitations? Any takers?

[arhyno at uwindsor.ca]

>One of the things that have struck me about Amazon ever since they 
started is 
>the way they manage to position themsevles on the web in such a way that 
I 
>quite often walk through their virtual doors when I definitely did not 
have 
>that intention in the first place: a kind of "have you considered Amazon 
as the 
>solution to your current information need?"
>
>Is it technically feasible to create such an invitation to appear 
whenever 
>someone uses a search engine from the university domain? At least this 
could 
>act as a catchment area for customers who have already made up their 
minds that 
>Google is their first choice

It is probably technically feasible if you approach this the same way that 
Amazon does, and pay for the placement in the results. Google Desktop puts 
local searches on the top of general searches, so if you wanted to hand 
out your catalogue with a mechanism for updates, you might get library 
content in general internet searching space by staking out a section of 
the desktop. Google has promised an API for the desktop tool so more 
options might appear on this front, but even with a large foot in the 
searching sphere, I worry more about what happens if Amazon's ubiquity 
goes beyond search engines. 

Amazon has done some work with Microsoft for integrating citations and 
cover art into Office. I don't know the status of this project, but what 
happens if that annoying paperclip wizard in Word might starts saying 
things like "You seem to be working on an essay on trains, Amazon offers 
the following books..". Ironically, ubiquitous searching and desktop 
integration seemed to be a flop in 1997 or so when there was a utility 
promoted by Alta Vista called SearchPal. Alta Vista was the biggest thing 
in internet search at the time, and SearchPal was an interesting twist on 
toolbars/bookmarklets since it was a standalone application that worked 
with the clipboard and any application on the desktop. On the face of it, 
SearchPal was like a more powerful browser toolbar, but it seemed to get 
lost in the shuffle. Still, the idea of the library having a presence at 
the "searchable" moment, both in the browser and elsewhere, is well worth 
pursuing.

art