[Web4lib] Authority + Wikipedia

[Peter Morville]

Excellent points Jennifer. I would add that we can also accomplish the goal
of making high quality information more findable by encouraging companies
like Google and Yahoo! to integrate better "authority algorithms" into their
search engines. And I'm using "encouraging" in a broad sense that includes
"making it difficult for them not to." Perhaps librarians need to become
authority activists.


Peter Morville
President, Semantic Studios
http://semanticstudios.com
http://findability.org



-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Jennifer Heise
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 5:47 PM
To: Thomale, J
Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Authority + Wikipedia

However, the opposite of the point mentioned below is what i'm really
interested in. I think it's our job to make authoritative information more
findable, instead of lamenting that information we consider less
authoritative is findable.

As it is, I see the library profession complaining about what is made
findable instead of working to make things more findable themselves.

How can we do that?
Well, with improved indexing. Improved searching and linking capabilities.
Metasearching. And yes, training.