[Web4lib] google & library catalogs

[Jim Campbell]

Ross makes an important point here, that if you're trying to get users to
notice your library materials when they're looking for something on Google,
getting them to limit their search in advance defeats the point. I'm a
little cynical though about how often they will find our books in a casual
search.  When Open WorldCat first came up, I tried looking for some current
titles. Using the typical Google search of one or two keywords, it was hard
to find anything about a book, because most topics had a lot of linked Web
pages and page rank pulled them up first. Searching on exact title typically
got sites that mentioned the book and then 4-5 pages of bookstore listings
before a library link appeared.

That said, most of the discussion of Google and opacs in recent years has
focused on discovery. You have a topic, you put in 1-2 words, and Google,
thanks to full-text searching, page rank, and plenty of Web content so that
your particular terms are likely to get found, miraculously gets you pretty
good results. Opacs lack full-text, any sort of linking that can help
determine relevance (though circulation might be some help), and they use a
standardized vocabulary that may not how be you think of the question.  So
they're crippled to begin with and a lot of the opac "solutions" we're
seeing these days are like putting lipstick on a pig.

But what is often forgotten in trash the opac sessions is they they do a
very good job of finding known items in smaller collections and that, as
FRBR is refined and becomes more common, they can do a fair job of leading
you to the right item even in a very large collection.

Libraries have been dinged (and in some ways rightly so) for their adherence
to the MARC record, but Google also needs to be dinged for their adherence
to page rank and in Google Book Search for their ignoring several centuries
of evidence that you need a little bit at least of bibliographic data to
identify books and also ignoring some good recent data that clustering
versions of the same text can be helpful in dealing with all those versions
of Great Expectations (though it would be even more helpful with more
subjective groupings - lousy type and may cause eyestrain, colored pictures,
happy ending, sad ending, etc.). To their credit, Google has been
experimenting with some different approaches in Google Scholar, notably so
far changes in advanced search and alllowing libraries to register an open
URL resolver, with a link apppearing in the book citations. Perhaps we'll
see some of the results of that experimenting in Google or Google
BookSearch.

But the other possibility, and the one that seems more likely given their
trend to spin off specialized search tools, is that books (other than books
for sale) will be ghettoized into GoogleScholar. If we all expose our opacs
to Google, Google may just tell us "no, thanks, we have other places for
that information." Indeed they could be pushed in that direction by their
need to create and maintain good relations with publishers. Being in Google
Scholar is not so bad for the academic libraries, but it's a problem for all
of us who want to get the word out that we have the latest by John Grisham.

Shame we couldn't get Google and Vivisimo together for a combination of page
rank and result processing - pull out the Web sites, books, videos, etc.   

- Jim Campbell
Campbell at Virginia.edu
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org 
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Ross Singer
> Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 8:33 PM
> To: Drew, Bill
> Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org; Jim Cody
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] google & library catalogs
> 
> This would sort of seem to defeat the purpose of Google, I think.
> 
> And it would probably be just as easy to get the user to your 
> website as to get them to install a bookmarklet or something 
> and remember to use it on Google.
> 
> -Ross.
> 
> On 4/12/06, Drew, Bill <drewwe at morrisville.edu> wrote:
> > Couldn't this be coded in a javascript so the phrase is 
> used but not 
> > displayed so one could create a Google search already bound to 
> > libraries?
> >
> > Wilfred (Bill) Drew
> > E-mail: mailto:drewwe at morrisville.edu
> > AOL Instant Messenger:BillDrew4
> > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little 
> temporary 
> > safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Benjamin Franklin)
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org 
> > > [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Jim Cody
> > > Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 8:13 PM
> > > To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> > > Subject: Re: [Web4lib] google & library catalogs
> > >
> > > I already replied off-list to Chris but maybe other 
> people are not 
> > > aware of this.
> > >
> > > If you search Google using the bound phrase "find in a 
> library" (in 
> > > quotes) and a title or author, it will bring the Open WorldCat 
> > > results close to the top.
> > > Then   if you click on one of those results you go
> > > into Open WorldCat, where you can enter your zip code and 
> get a list 
> > > of the closest libraries holding that item.
> > _______________________________________________
> > Web4lib mailing list
> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>