Professional Reading Shelf
ERIC
Education–Databases
Source: ERIC
New, ERIC Structured Abstract Initiative
“ERIC is developing a structured abstract format for ERIC database records. Structured abstracts, pioneered by the scientific community, provide a template for the presentation of common research study elements such as background, purpose, research design, and conclusions. They provide readable, informative, and accurate summaries that enable users to quickly identify and evaluate research literature.” Learn more about the SAI here.
–
Council for Networked Information
Source: CNI
Project Briefings: A Preliminary List
A look at the many projects that CNI is backing. Most listings have direct links to the actual project. Presentations about these projects will be made next week at the CNI spring 2006 Task Force Meetings. Lots of interesting material here.
–
Copyright–United States–Fair Use–Congressional Testimony
Source: Library Copyright Alliance
The Role of Fair Use in Libraries and Education–Testimony from the Library Copyright Alliance
–
Finding vs. Discovering
Source: St. Petersburg Times
The endangered joy of serendipity
“Serendipity is defined as the ability to make fortunate discoveries accidentally…. Think about the library. Do people browse anymore? We have become such a directed people. We can target what we want, thanks to the Internet. Put a couple of key words into a search engine and you find — with an irritating hit or miss here and there – exactly what you’re looking for. It’s efficient, but dull. You miss the time-consuming but enriching act of looking through shelves, of pulling down a book because the title or the binding interests you. Inside, the book might be a loser, a waste of the effort and calories it took to remove it from its place and then return. Or it might be a dark chest of wonders, a life-changing first step into another world, something to lead your life down a path you didn’t know was there.”
–
Libraries–Databases
Web Search
Source: NY Times
Searching for Dummies
Unfortunately, the libary world has heard much of this before. Yet another look at the poor info retrieval skills. The question is what are we doing to change things? In 2002, this article from the Columbia Journalism Review (by an instructor at Harvard) said the same type of thing.

A few comments:
+ From the article, “Google led in ranking sites by how often they are linked to other highly ranked sites.”
True but not entirely accurate. Google and all of the leading “general purpose” web engines look at more than just link analysis. Ask any search engine optimizer and they’ll tell you that everything from term frequency, proximity, and many more metrics factor in to determine relevancy at Google and at other engines. Chris Sherman’s book Google Power reports that Google (and other engines) look at more than 100 metrics/factors in determining relevancy. Linking is just one of them.

+ This article only talks Google. Why? What about other large general web engines including MSN, Yahoo, Exalead, and Ask? What ever happened to using the right tool at the right time? What services and features does one engine offer that the others don’t? Often a library will have more than one reference book or database that covers the same content but offers features that the others don’t. Also, even if the content was the exact same at each engine, each has a different formula (secret sauce if you prefer) to determine relevancy. Another reason why looking at results from more than one engine is important.

+ What about specialty search tools (for example ResearchIndex, SmealSearch (offline today), Topix.net, RedLightGreen, Scirus), The Wayback Machine?

+ What about the databases students/public have access to remotely for free?

+ What about the value of non-commercial directories like RDN, LII, IPL, and Infomine? Quality over quantity is the rule with these resources.

+ What about virtual reference services?

+ What about reference books? (yes, I said books, please be kind)

+ What I have learned over the past few years is that one reason many people/students/faculty don’t use other tools is that no one has:

+ TOLD POTENTIAL USERS ABOUT THEM!!!

+ Shared their value proposition(s) (one of them time savings and another quality of info).

+ Share how they MIGHT produce more relevant, timely, and authoritative results. Of course, the entire info literacy issue transcends all of this.

+ We not only have a role as marketers (in the fee-based database world the vendors need to help) but also as trainers. This is why staying current on all tools (and how they work, what they do different) is so important. The right tool/source at the right time.

+ Easier said then done, absolutely! One good piece of news is that so many wonderful free or very inexpensive (have you see Newsplayer.com?) resources exist.

NOTE: For those search “historians” out there, the original use of link analysis on the web was done by Jon Kleinberg and colleagues at IBM for CLEVER, an engine that was never publicly released. Much of what Clever did in terms of algorithm is now part of Teoma technology which powers Ask.com.
See Also: Kleinberg’s Home Page
See Also: Clever Home Page
See Also: Hypersearching the Web (Kleinberg Explains Clever vs. Others, 1999)
See Also: How Teoma Works (Several Articles at the Bottom of this Post)
NOTE 2: While it’s 100% true that link analysis owes a lot to citation analysis and the work of Dr. Eugene Garfield, one major difference exists. Link analysis (on the open web) is much easier to game and manipulate. It’s a constant challenge (a cat-and-mouse game) for both the search engines and those who want to move their pages to the top of the organic results. Traditional citation analysis is done by monitoring an “approved” list of sources. While self-citation is always an issue it is not nearly the issue that outside influences play on link analysis.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 28th, 2006 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.