[WEB4LIB] Re: In defense of stupid users

[Patricia F Anderson]

Hi, Jimm et al,

On Thu, 5 May 2005, Jimm Wetherbee wrote:

> It more than just the simple interface that Google and its ilk provide,
> however.  With Google one can be pretty much assured that whatever the topic
> he or she will find something and often enough in more than one format. How
> many times have we seen a patron search for a journal article on the online
> catalog or worse, use the wrong database for an article?  The problem is not
> all of our making, but we seem to be stuck between federated searches which
> seem especially slow and tend to diminish the qualities of individual
> databases or presenting patrons with a vast array of individual databases.

I'm hearing a lot about Google or the library in this discussion, but 
there is a lot more available for web searching than Google. What about 
the federated web search engine, a9?  I am teaching two sessions next week 
of an advanced web searching course for faculty. A9 and its federated 
searching options is going to be very prominent in this task-focused 
2-hour class.

For those who don't already know, you might be interested to hear that the 
A9.com search engine is now offering user-controlled meta-search 
capabilities, including for library catalogs. Libraries who have already 
configured the capability for their users include the British Library, NUI 
in Galway Ireland, and the Seattle Public Library.

A9 has always offered a simpler kind of federated search, offering 
Google/Alexa web results along with Google:Images and Amazon:BookSearch 
and Answers.com. Now they have made it possible for people to create their 
own "column" and for people to share these with each other. A few days ago 
they had 50-some columns available, today it is 171.

To test it out yourself, follow these steps.

(1) Go to <http://www.a9.com/>

(2) Register or sign in as an Amazon customer (assuming you have made
purchases from Amazon).

(3) Return to A9 home. On the righthand side of the screen click on the
bright green text that says:

   NEW Add Columns to
   your Search Results

(4) Explore these, click on ADD to include an option in your personal
settings.

(5) Try a search; click on the buttons on the righthand side to activate a
search in that area. For my course demo, I currently have selected:

Web Images Books Reference PubMed HealthTopics HealthDirectory Yellow 
Pages Pretrieve Wikipedia Creative Commons Koders theCurity WebDevRef.com 
Wesbran.com MSDN Safari ITPapers.com ThinkGeek Acronym Top Blogs 
blogs.feedster Blogdigger Blogwise Flickr WebshotsPhotos BritishLibrary 
BLCatalogue NUIGalway RedLightGreen SPL Movies IndeedJobs

You can manipulate the same search without retyping by simply clicking a
button ON or OFF.

I expect people to ask if we will create a column for searching our 
own library collections. I've already had someone ask me if we could get a 
'column' added for ERIC. I'd like one for the FDA databases. There are 
lots of options that would be very helpful.

For myself, I use these the same way most patrons use federated search 
engines -- find out where the most helpful results are and then pop over 
to that site and really dig. One of my favorite uses, as a medical 
librarian, is to have web results in one column, Images next, SearchInBook 
in the second (and I use these to decide what to get from the library), 
and PubMed in the third (journal articles I might want.) The students I've 
shown this find it really cuts the time it takes to write a term paper.

Talk about 'easy', 'empowering the user', 'what will we do when Google 
Print is really going' ... we are already there, in a sense. Start 
teaching a9 now, show people how to integrate what it finds with what is 
available in the library, and integrate library and web in a very powerful 
way.

My $.02 worth ...

Patricia Anderson, pfa at umich.edu