By: Karen Cioffi,
on 4/6/2015
SEO marketing has changed. Or, maybe a better wording would be SEO marketing has evolved. It’s true you still need to take the major search engine players (Google, Bing, and Yahoo) into account, but you have more options now. The Major Search Engines Using Google as a catch all for this category, getting your website visible and its content categorized and indexed is an absolute necessity.
By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 2/17/2012
Despite having grown up with the Internet at their fingertips (college students aren’t very good at using Google to find information they need. Ethnographic research shows they have trouble refining their results and they aren’t making the best... Read the rest of this post
By: Karen Cioffi,
on 11/21/2011
By: Karen Cioffi,
on 1/26/2011
By: Beth,
on 8/23/2009
Recently I saw the documentary Resolved which is about high school public policy debating and specifically two teams of debaters, one from an Illinois suburb and one from inner-city Los Angeles. During the movie I learned that public policy debate between high school students is not at all what I thought it was. For the past several decades it’s been about fast talking – and I mean really fast talking – and rapid information processing more than focusing on gaining a strong understanding of a particular issue. (Part of the movie focuses on the two teens from L.A. trying to change debate from the fast-talking fast-processing style to something more traditional. But, that aspect of the documentary is not the focus of this post.)
Students involved in debate do learn important skills. But, it does seem that what I thought of as debate doesn’t exist anymore. For example, because of the speed at which the debaters speak, most people can’t understood what’s being said. That means that those attending a debate are just the judges and other debaters. (No family members, friends, etc.)
This doesn’t mean that a lot of research doesn’t go into preparing for debates. The teens gather so much information (which is all printed out) that they fill multiple plastic tubs that they cart with them to debate competitions. As a librarian working with teens, I had a certain sense of pleasure thinking about all of those teens using research skills in order to uncover information for the debate.
In one section of the movie one of the debaters talks about the importance of research in preparing for a debate. He talks about how some information can be found on search engines like Google. But then he talks about the importance of using other “search engines” that make it possible to dig deeper into a topic and how without these other search engines he wouldn’t be able to gather information needed in order to be successful in debating. The other search engines he mentioned were Lexis/Nexis, Proquest, and other tools that we commonly in the library world refer to as databases.
This teen talking about databases and searching was something I actually wrote down while watching the movie. I was so struck by this very smart teen talking about research and knowing that there were tools other than Google that he could use, but thinking of them as just another search engine.
Why was this so key to me? Because, I spend a lot of time talking to librarians – public, academic, and school – about what we call these things known as databases in the library world. Do we use the term database? Do we simply refer to them as a way to locate articles? How do we refer to them? The answer seemed so simple when it came from the teen debater in Resolved. To him, they are just search engines – a different type of search engine but still a search engine.
Now I know, some readers will not like this idea of calling Proquest, Ebschost, etc. a search engine. But, think about the teen in the movie. It didn’t hurt his research skills to be lumping the databases with Google and Yahoo. He understood there were differences. But, for his purposes, all of the tools had the same basic purpose, to be able to search the web for information that would meet his needs.
Maybe here and now we should resolve to remove the word databases from our library vocabulary, web site, promotional pieces, etc. and simply call everything a search engine. What do you think? Let the debate begin.
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By: Alice,
on 7/29/2008
I checked out Cuil, tempted by the Chronicle's coverage of the new, "bigger than Google" search engine. Not thrilling, IMO. But maybe it will grow on me. It does have a nice black screen, which might save lots of energy--but it might not. Did I mention we want to see Wall-E last weekend?
By: Alice,
on 12/11/2007
If anyone else is still knee-deep in the new Privacy Report like I am, then this headline might have caught your eye:
Ask.com Puts a Bet on Privacy(NYT)
By: Gina MarySol Ruiz,
on 3/20/2007
I recently read a great post by Liz Burns over at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, one of my favorite blogs to read in the morning. Liz listed search strings pulled from her web counter and came up with some interesting and funny results. I then popped over to The Shady Glade (another favorite) because they also posted their searches as well. Charmed, I decided I'd post my own web counter search strings from AmoxCalli.
This is what I came up with:
Chuchas - this must mean Tia Chuchas, Luis J. Rodriguez' bookshop/cafe/cultural location that recently was turned into a laundrymat, forcing Luis and Trini to rush to find a new location. Read more about that odyssey on Xispas.com
ALA 2007 Best list - okay, it must be because I posted the list
[email protected] - email address? um, why?
the silver donkey recommendations - is the donkey recommending? What is the donkey recommending? Books?
Emlyn's moon summary - okay
manga animation maidens and dragons - interesting and long search string
are mermaids real? - I'd like to think so. What did you find out?
ciudad juarez murders gustave - um who's gustave? has he committed murder? creepy.
abc - learning alphabet?
the beekeeper mermaid - this one really got me thinking. Mermaids as beekeepers? Underwater?
Victor Villasenor - Love him!
The Invention of Hugo Cabret - gorgeous book! buy it!
Misunderstandings + Stories + chicken - ???? That was bizarre.
That was fun. Let's do it again in six months.
By: Alice,
on 3/7/2007
There's an interesting article in today's New York Times about the future of internet searching, at least as perceived from Microsoft's vantage point. At Techfest this week, a Microsoft researcher demonstrated a new service called "Mix," which (if it works as demonstrated) would allow users to organize their results more efficiently. Mix may be available within six to nine months, according to the article. You can find a brief description of Mix if you scroll about three-quarters down this page.
Another service, Web Assistant, (no release date given; this name has been kicking around Microsoft for at least 10 years) would be even more intuitive, driving you to results that could distinguish whether your were looking for a football team, an automobile, or an exotic cat when you search for "jaguars." It manages this legerdemain by learning from your previous searches and by those of other searchers who have looked up the same topic.
It seems to me that the better the search function gets, the more we as librarians should be rethinking our mission. We have already lost the ready reference trade to Google and its kin; where will we seek refuge when the search engines can actually deliver substantial, unambiguous results right to the desktop?
By: Alice,
on 2/28/2007
It's Wednesday. The luggage has been gone since Friday night. I have to wait out today before I can make a claim to US Airways. I finally broke down last night and bought new toiletries, a replacement trackball, etc. Funny how not having my toothbrush or my trackball has made me really grumpy the past two days.
Good news is, I have two interesting tidbits to share with you:
Interesting post.
Thanks for stopping by Susanne.