WML Tech Updates

Ealier this week, Microsoft released in beta Live Search Books, a competitor to Google Book Search.

Here’s a Washington Post editorial by Richard Ekman about why he thinks universities should support Google’s efforts. But I can’t help but wonder - what happens when we support all these digitizing efforts? What if others join in the race? Doesn’t this mean that the user still has tons of choices on where to look to find information - which is one of the problems we already have in libraries. We subscribe to just how many electronic resources? But maybe having access and not knowing how to get it is better than not having any access whatsoever.

From the Live Search WebLog, Cliff Guren, Director of Publisher Evangelism, says,

The U.S. beta launch of Live Search Books is a big step forward in advancing the way people discover information through the integration of content that has been “off-limits” to the traditional Search experience, until now. This release makes tens of thousands of out-of-copyright books available from our library scanning initiative, including books from the University of California, the University of Toronto, and the British Library. In addition, we are announcing new partnerships with the New York Public Library and the American Museum of Veterinary Medicine.

Take a look at Live Search Books! How does it compare in your opinion to Google’s Book Search? What are your thoughts on these tools? Are they really helpful in the end?

The Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) is using Google Co-op, which is a tool that you can use to create a customized search engine (often refered to as a CSE) for your site. The search engine at OPLIN searches all 251 Ohio public library websites. It’s blended in with their Find a library search tool, where you can either find a library, or search through all the library websites.

The reason I mention this is because I decided to use this very same technology for our new website. Google CSE will search our website at the directory level. This means we can set it to only search /walker rather than at the root level, which is www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu, which is also the entire Owen website. We obviously are just interested in people finding information on our library website. It does not search through databases or through Acorn - just the pages of our site.

Our very own Hilary Rudsenske has a background in search engine optimization, and because she’s really interested in this stuff, I put her in charge of improving the WML search engine. She can do a lot more customization to it, improve rankings of various pages, include or exclude certain pages or other directories (such as removing our Staffweb from the search results), and other cool things. After things go live in January, and all our high priority needs are met, she can start improving the search features.

From the small amount of testing we have done so far, the search engine seems to far more impressive than the Heard Library Search Engine.

Interested in search engines?  As library staff, we all are probably at least somewhat interested in how these ever-improving search tools that affect our field.  For example, there is a whole slue of people out there that believe Google will be the demise of the library. I don’t really feel that way personally, but I do like to stay current on the trends in search engine companies that traditionally only offered just that - a search engine.  Now they are offering new features, customizable home pages, social tagging, and other tools that enhance your interaction with the Web and other users of the Web.

Anyway, here are some interesting blogs that give users a little peek at what’s going on behind the scene.

Did you know that Yahoo! has a blog where you can keep current on all the new features and tools that they are implementing?  Visit the Yahoo! Search Blog.

Naturally, Google has a blog too, unimaginatively called Google Blog.  In fact, they have dozens of blogs.  Why?  They have dozens of tools, products, features, and things to play with.   So why not?  And Hilary, they even have a Google Analytics Blog.

Ask.com (formerly known as Ask Jeeves) has a blog too: The Ask.com Blog. Some posts there look very helpful, especially when highlighting the features of their search engine.  Others aren’t.   For example, posting pictures of dogs wearing Halloween costumes just because the pictures were passed around in the Ask.com office that day.  Nope, I can’t think of how that is helpful to me as a researcher.  But I do appreciate their attempts to really investigate and improve the way natural language searching is done.

One site I particularly like is Search Engine Watch.  They monitor the actions of ALL the major (and even some minor) search engines out there so I don’t have have to look in fifty zillion places to see who has what feature, how they do their relevancy rankings, etc.  Their blog, however, is only somewhat useful in my opinion.  They have so much information jam-packed on their site, the blog almost seems redundant.

Happy reading (and searching)!

1. VUprint - Never a week goes by without an update about VUprint. But Rachel feels confident that written policies and procedures will be coming soon from the OUL on Library Use Cards, who can print, and much more.
   David, Rachel, and Brent are still figuring out the administrative VUprint/copy cards issue. Once it’s figured out, rest assured that you will be informed! WML will be also receiving a print release station next week. It will be near Kilimanjaro on the circulation desk so that library staff can more easily help confused patrons. Also, Rachel anticipates 1 of 2 possible events for the future.
   1. There may be another open house type session for training on VUprint and all the policies and procedures that accompany it.
      The Tech Support Coordinators may be responsible for the training of VUprint. In this case, Rachel would be the VUprint trainer for WML, and would hope Brent would collaborate in this.
   • LITS has been working hard with the people who make the CSprint software, and all of the known problems have been fixed. The libraries are probably going to be turning on pay-for-printing prior to the labs, as they aren’t all ready yet. Why not wait till everyone is ready? The library feels most pressed to start charging very soon for printing. According to Bill Hook, the libraries recorded 250,000 pages printed in just the first 2 weeks of Sept, a 25% increase over last year’s September activity. Holy printing, Batman!
2. New Network Port - Someone from VU ITS will also be arriving early this week to install another port by Kilimanjaro. LITS arranged this, and Rachel also assumes that someone will then also activate the port for use.
3. Possible New Printers - David, Danny, Barry, and Rachel met last week to discuss the replacement of Kilimanjaro and Matterhorn. Something formal is being written and will be presented to the Dean, so keep your fingers crossed!
4. Database Update - We have a trial to a new database: Business Monitor Online (BMO) Also, the current subscription to the Forrester database has been extended till Friday, October 14, until more discussion takes places about it’s cancellation or renewal.
5. Upstairs Computer - This computer is ready! That’s right. You didn’t misread. The upstairs computer is ready for public use. The CPU is locked in the cabinet. So if you turn off the computer, you will need the key to turn it back on. Rachel has a key, and Elaine put the second key with the opening keys. It is set to go into sleep mode after 2 hours, so there really isn’t a reason to turn it off each day.
6. Digital Suggestion Box - If you haven’t done so already, please register yourself and have a look at the new Digital Suggestion Box. Feel free to post things, but remember that this is online and available to the entire world to see, so don’t say anything you wouldn’t mind outsiders reading. See Rachel is you need any help.
7. Google - Did you know that you can now personalize your Google homepage? That’s right! You can add all kinds of information to your Google page, besides the Google search bar. You can add local weather, stock info, news, your favorite links, and even RSS feeds! It’s a piece of cake! When you go to Google, you’ll see on the top right-hand corner, “Personalized Home”. Try it out! The personalizing of search engines is something that I have been anticipating for a while now.
   Amazon is the master at this, and even some libraries have portals that are more personalized. Google is now on the bandwagon, and soon you’ll see other search engines emulating Google.
8. New WML Website - Rachel is making slow BUT STEADY progress on the new website and the Staffweb. She is meeting with David this week to discuss its progress.

Have a good weekend, everyone! Thanks for your attention and time!