[Web4lib] google & library catalogs

Tue Apr 11 16:03:46 EDT 2006

David inspires two completely contradictory visions for where we're going:

-- Integrate the library catalog, the library full text database
subscriptions, the library's own e-text holdings, etc. all into the learning
management system,  and then all into one giant campus student portal.  Some
instiutions, such as U Minnesota, already have very effective student
portals.  One stop shopping for the course experience and for library
resources you need to be effective.

-- Google renames Google Scholar as Google Homework.  Google Homework knows
your locale and your institutional affiliations.  You search for Hamlet and
Google Homework offers you links to books in the U library that contain the
full text of Hamlet, books commenting on Hamlet, links to full text and
paper holdings of journals with articles about Hamlet, a link to the student
theater's upcoming production of Hamlet.  Google Homework also knows that
you live at Chandler Crossing 5 miles north of campus, so it offers links to
similar resources at the nearby East Lansing Public Library.  And maps
and hours of operation.  And Facebook links for students taking the giant
lecture class the same time you are.

With ads for tutors who can help you understand Hamlet, for Cliff Notes and
the like, for course notes taken by paid note takers who took your English
class last semester, for past midterm and final exams, and for online term
paper mills where you can order your Hamlet paper for instant delivery.

Hmmmm.  Which vision do you think will win?

/rich

On 4/11/06, David Walker <dwalker at csusm.edu> wrote:
>
> Sara,
>
> Putting your digital collections aside for a second, you might want to
> consider whether Google really is the best mechanism for exposing your
> own users at the University of Oregon to your collections.
>
> Google is, of course, popular and sexy; and no doubt all of your users
> start their research there or in another search engine.
>
> But throwing your catalog records into the Great Big Index Of Stuff is
> kind of like your local mom-and-pop supermarket using national
> television networks to advertise a sale on oranges.  You won't get as
> big a reach advertising in the local newspaper, but focusing your
> advertising on people who will actually find it useful and meaningful
> can be far more effective.
>
> Given limited budgets and resources, I would personally opt to invest
> resources into integrating your collections into whatever learning
> management system(s) and/or portal you all have there at the University
> of Oregon.  Those systems are *heavily* used by your core audience, and
> the current level of integration between library systems and learning
> management systems could be greatly improved.
>
> You may not get as many visits as from a high placement in a Google
> result set (although most of your records probably won't appear high
> enough to be effective anyway), but visits mean nothing unless they
> actually result in check-outs.
>
> --Dave
>
> =========================
> David Walker
> Web Development Librarian
> Library, Cal State San Marcos
> 760-750-4379
> http://public.csusm.edu/dwalker
> =========================
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Casey Bisson
> Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 10:45 AM
> To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> Cc: Sara Brownmiller
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] google & library catalogs
>
> Sara,
>
> With more than 80 million Americans searching the web on any given
> day, and major search engines handling five billion searches per
> month, it's hard to imagine not wanting to make library resources
> findable and available to those users.
>
> Google scares and confuses most of us, but I like to describe it as a
> giant OPAC with cataloging rules much like those we're already
> familiar with (even if those rules are different from what we're
> familiar with). Unfortunately, many of our systems are built in ways
> that contradict those rules and make our content difficult to index
> and find.
>
> But it's a challenge we can meet. And considering that a good number
> of those billions of monthly searches could benefit from the
> knowledge available within libraries, it's a challenge that's worth
> our effort.
>
> That's the philosophy, here's some practice:
>
> WPopac[1] is my project to improve the findability of our resources
> by following the rules of the Google Economy[2]. In doing so it's
> already highly ranked for at least one search[3], and the logs show
> that it's getting a large number of hits from search engines for
> terms like "di vinci code" (yes, note the misspelling)  and "assisted
> suicide" along with a few hundred more. How many hits? In the less
> than three months that the prototype has been open to the public,
> it's received more than 550,000 page loads (that count excludes my
> own activity), about as many as official Plymouth State University
> catalog received in 12 months last year.
>
> 1: http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11133/
>
> 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_economy
>
> 3: http://www.google.com/search?q=joe+monninger
>
> Casey Bisson
> __________________________________________
>
> e-Learning Application Developer
> Plymouth State University
> Plymouth, New Hampshire
> http://oz.plymouth.edu/~cbisson/
> ph: 603-535-2256
>
>
> On Apr 10, 2006, at 5:55 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)
> > _______________________________________________
> > Web4lib mailing list
> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
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