[Web4lib] google & library catalogs

[Roy Tennant]

Unfortunately this reminds me of the early, horrific days of Gopher,  
where book records from individual libraries started showing up in  
Veronica searches. The problem is the incredible noise that comes  
from locating 35,000 different records for Hamlet from 20,000  
libraries worldwide, and not a clue what to do with the information.  
I would argue strenously against doing this, and instead allow the  
very rational method of OCLC's Open WorldCat project to guide users  
to your library.
Roy

On Apr 10, 2006, at 2:55 PM, Sara Brownmiller wrote:

>
> There is interest here in allowing google (google the search  
> engine, not
> google scholar) to spider, or crawl, our library catalog.  Since many
> students start their research in google, they might identify  
> information
> easily available to them.  It would also help increase exposure to
> materials in our digital collections and our special collections and
> manuscripts.
>
> Has anyone allowed a search engine to crawl their catalog?  What  
> impact
> did it have on the performance?  Does your library have a policy about
> search engines crawling your catalog?  What factors influenced your
> decision?
>
> I would also be very interested in locating some records in google  
> that
> came from a library catalog to see how the user is linked to the  
> catalog
> or to see how the material is identified with a specific institution.
>
> thanks, Sara
>
> Sara Brownmiller			University of Oregon Libraries
> Director, Library Systems 		1299 University of Oregon
> Women's Studies Librarian		Eugene, OR  97403-1299
> 					541/346-2368 (voice)
> snb at uoregon.edu				541/346-3485 (fax)
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