Broadening Your Internet Search -- Making Searching Even Easier

Internet (or Google) search is not the same a library's catalog search.

Let's first see the problem with what we do (in our Internet search step), and how Google assumes our search request.

In Google search, by using different keywords your search gets more specific.

Example: a. (key words) International Comparative Librarianship; b. (words & key phrases, i.e., words in quotes) "Information services" Research "Content management" Training "Human Resources" "Helpful Advice" "Related Services"

The above specificity reduces the number of search results. Remember, if you make it too specific, you may miss some useful websites.

When you type a word, Google search mechanism views it as though there is an AND between each of your search terms-- though you may not have typed: AND. Obviously Google will search only for websites that have all the words you entered.

Now to broaden your search, you can type OR between two words (that automatically avoids AND). Then, Google looks for sites that have any one of your search terms. For example, if you search for ‘International OR librarianship’, you will find only results with either words--results show all the sites containing the words ‘international’ and all the pages containing the word ‘librarianship’.  [adapted from Open.edu]

See also:

• DOING  WEB  QUERIES  USING  GOOGLE
• The ~ Operator  : Find synonyms by preceding the term with a ~, which is known as the tilde or synonym operator.
•  Exercises/Solutions
•  Google as Teacher: Everything Your Students Know They Learned from Searching Google  Pamela N. Martin, Utah State University

Boise Library’s Catalog Emulates Google, Amazon Search

December 7, 2012 By Jessica Renee Napier

The goals of Boise Public Library’s new Enterprise Discover System, which was funded by a consortium of more than 15 Idaho libraries, are to create a positive customer experience, retain key features and options from the traditional catalog product, and to integrate the new version with a new website.
The Enterprise system offers a user-friendly experience and additional features. Library visitors can now access:

• Smart searching: As search terms are typed into the search box, fuzzy logic provides auto-complete, corrects misspellings and offers dynamic search suggestions based on past successful searches for the same keywords.  
• Precise results: The user can narrow a search by selecting options for author, format, publication date, availability or holding library, and can also deselect options of no interest. 
• Increased options: Users can multi-select titles for placing several holds at once or add a group of items to a list, and text or email results. continue reading

Excerpts from the "Really Modern Library" blog entry:

"The goal of this project is to shed light on the big questions about future accessibility and usability of analog culture in a digital, networked world."

"Our aim with the Really Modern Library project is not to build a physical or even a virtual library, but to stimulate new thinking about mass digitization and, through the generation of inspiring new designs, interfaces and conceptual models, to spur innovation in publishing, media, libraries, academia and the arts."

The blog entry also mentions "plans for a major international design competition calling for proposals, sketches, and prototypes for a hypothetical 'really modern library.' " The blog entry goes on to describe this competiton as follows:

"The call for entries will go out to as broad a community as possible, including designers, artists, programmers, hackers, librarians, archivists, activists, educators, students and creative amateurs. Our present intent is to raise a large sum of money to administer the competition and to have a pool for prizes that is sufficiently large and meaningful that it can compel significant attention from the sort of minds we want working on these problems."

For more info, go to: the really modern library

Info courtesy: Bernie Sloan.

Library ditches microfilm in favour of RIAs

By: Briony Smith
ComputerWorld Canada (30 Aug 2007)
Nestled up in the northern interior of British Columbia, even the small town of Terrace isn’t untouched by the rich Internet applications trend — the local public library has recently recreated its newspaper archiving system into a digital version that’s getting rave reviews. continue reading

Eleanor Muehle Newspaper Archive

When Willings Multimedia needed help building an interactive web-based library for the Terrace Public Library in British Columbia, Canada, they contacted Integration New Media (INM). The two companies worked together to build the “Eleanor Muehle Newspaper Archive”, a dynamic and interactive web application that allows users of all ages and technical capabilities to search through and read newspapers online.

Demise of the Local Catalog or The OPAC Reborn?

Demise of the Local Catalog, by Roy Tenant***

The OPAC Reborn.(Online Public Access Catalog at libraries)

The Future of Cataloging, by Peachy

Thought for the day - Now if we had the semantic web or enough catalogers

***My 2 cent:
This article is an excellent eye opener, and makes a good feed-forward. Thanks to John Jaeger for sharing this info.

I agree with Roy that libraries must pack off their catalogs (I packed it too, and seen so many). But moving with a Google model (a free search-ware mindset) is probably not going to make the library catalog that useful and value-added, on the face of umpteen competitors; and a searchology (as Google calls it) that comes with a package minus the controlled vocabulary (with whatever name one likes it, LC, Meta tags, etc.).

I think there must be an effort to upgrade our mindset of catalogoing / cataloguing and fine tune it with our own foundations of librarianship and user-friendly ventures.

I have been working on the idea of visual catalogs, that started with the idea of an indepth, as well as, localized cataloging spirit of my professional inspirer: Sanford Berman.

FYI. I have compiled a webliography on this theme. Would appreciate your comments on this dimension. The link to my webliography is: