[Web4lib] Re: Google News Timeline
IsisInform at aol.com
IsisInform at aol.com
Sun Apr 26 12:10:33 EDT 2009
Thanks Thomas, for clarifying my example.
Peter, I am not characterizing all relevance rankings as silly, just this
particular instance. But, in terms of the database, this is a pretty big
instance.
I did not use the database’s search screen. I went to its list of
publications and selected a journal title. In successive drilldowns, the screen
displayed year and then issues within a year. When a single issue’s
articles were displayed, the database allowed sorting by date, source, or
relevance. None of these choices are pertinent since all returned articles are
published on the same date, in the same source, and with equal relevance.
As it happens, the returned articles are listed in page number order, as
they would be in a table of contents. This is the correct default structure
because someone using this technique presumably wants to look at a table of
contents. However the database seems to have gotten it right by
accident. The results are not presented as being sorted by page number, but rather
by date, source, or relevance. Sorting by page number is not given as an
option. Customers who want to know the actual arrangement have to figure it
out on their own.
Other prominent databases offer this type of drilldown by journal title
and issue. The one that does it the best allows sorting by article title or
page number, which obviously are more valuable presentation strategies for
this technique.
The problem seems to be that the first database offers the drilldown
method, but then translates the results into a visible search string. Therefore
its sorting options are those used by a keyword search where results are
usually less homogenous. The other database acknowledges that looking at
the contents of one issue is a research technique requiring applicable
presentation strategies.
Thanks,
Katherine
***************************
Katherine Bertolucci
Isis Information Services
Phoenix, AZ 85001
_katherine at isisinform.com_ (mailto:katherine at isisinform.com)
IsisInBlog: _“Beyond Findability” Published in Searcher_
(http://isisinblog.typepad.com/isisinblog/2009/02/beyond-findability-published-in-searcher.h
tml)
In a message dated 4/25/2009 9:05:30 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
web4lib-request at webjunction.org writes:
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:10:11 EDT
From: IsisInform at aol.com
Subject: [Web4lib] Re: Google News Timeline
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Message-ID: <ce0.4895526b.37233e63 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Thanks for sending this Bernie.
The concept of organzing information is Google's lead sentence, even as
they beta test chronological order. Google seems to be recognizing their
users' frustration with disorganized presentation. To a user, relevance
often
looks like random.
I recently searched another database for the contents of one issue of a
journal. The results were returned in order of relevance, even though
all
article titles equally met the same issue requirement. That's just silly
and
increasingly sophisticated users know it.
Katherine
***************************
Katherine Bertolucci
Isis Information Services
Phoenix, AZ 85001
_katherine at isisinform.com_ (mailto:katherine at isisinform.com)
IsisInBlog: _“Beyond Findability†Published in Searcher_
(http://isisinblog.typepad.com/isisinblog/2009/02/beyond-findability-publish
ed-in-searcher.ht
ml)
In a message dated 4/23/2009 9:05:49 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
web4lib-request at webjunction.org writes:
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:09:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: "B.G. Sloan" <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Web4lib] Google News Timeline
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Message-ID: <116766.43563.qm at web57106.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Something new from Google Labs: Google News Timeline...
"At Google, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to organize
information. Today, we're announcing Google News Timeline--a new feature
on Google
Labs that organizes many different types of search results on a zoomable,
graphical timeline."
http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/introducing-google-news-timeline.
html
Not sure if I'd use it much, but it's kinda interesting to see Google
playing around with different search result display formats.
Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:33:40 +0000
From: Peter Noerr <pnoerr at museglobal.com>
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] Re: Google News Timeline
To: "web4lib at webjunction.org" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Message-ID:
<6F46C274A8817049BB6D8FD107C989D942C2FEBB74 at MBX12.EXCHPROD.USA.NET>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Katherine, I'm intrigued by your last sentence. ("That's just silly and
increasingly sophisticated users know it.")
Why is relevance ranking silly in this case or any other? (I'm not arguing
for it, I would like to hear your reasons)
What sort of arrangement would your "increasingly sophisticated" user
expect? And why?
And how would you tell the system of this desire? I presume you just took
the default (ranked by relevance) display (if you were given a choice).
Peter
Dr Peter Noerr
CTO, MuseGlobal, Inc.
+1 415 896 6873 (office)
+1 415 793 6547 (mobile)
www.museglobal.com
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:55:55 -0400
From: Thomas Dowling <tdowling at ohiolink.edu>
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Re: Google News Timeline
To: Peter Noerr <pnoerr at museglobal.com>
Cc: "web4lib at webjunction.org" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Message-ID: <49F20B3B.80101 at ohiolink.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
On 04/24/2009 02:33 PM, Peter Noerr wrote:
> Katherine, I'm intrigued by your last sentence. ("That's just silly and
increasingly sophisticated users know it.")
>
> Why is relevance ranking silly in this case or any other? (I'm not
arguing for it, I would like to hear your reasons)
>
If you search for "articles from volume 5, number 3, September 2007", which
hits are most relevant? To humans, the answer is none: they're all the
same.
To a relevance algorithm, the answer is likely to be either "the shortest
one
since 'volume 5 number 3' makes up a higher percentage of the record"; or
"the
one that happens to have 'a volume of 3 to 5 gallons' in the abstract,
since
there are more matches on search terms".
The disconnect can certainly seem silly.
--
Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:31:50 +0000
From: Peter Noerr <pnoerr at museglobal.com>
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] Re: Google News Timeline
To: "web4lib at webjunction.org" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Message-ID:
<6F46C274A8817049BB6D8FD107C989D942C2FEBBAD at MBX12.EXCHPROD.USA.NET>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Except, of course, your second example is a false hit, and thus doesn't
fit Katherine's (or your) criterion of all being relevant. (And you are
postulating an interestingly sophisticated search engine to retrieve the second
record from the query!)
We could argue about the silliness of the different relevance algorithms,
and virtually all of them break down when the calculated relevance of a
record is 100% or 0% - as happens an awful lot of the time.
My question was really; If relevance ranked results are silly, what is a
not silly display ranking? And why is it not silly?
In this very specific case (all articles from a journal issue) there is a
possible canonical order in the page numbers as well as sequences for the
title and author rankings. Do any of these make any more sense than a relev
ance order? And is the order only "non-silly" when seen in the context of
the user's use of them?
Peter
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