LISNews: Librarian Blog Since 1999

First of all, there are lots of attendees here that are blogging this conference or at the very least blogging while they are attending the conference. A subtle, yet very important difference. If you are interested in what others are saying, check out the Information Today blog site or the CIL2006 wiki.

Search Engine Report by Chris Sherman (of Invisible Web fame) momentous levity: Threats to privacy and individual liberties are happening in the U.S., while ironically, China's information space is opening up. I don't really think this is funny in any ha-ha sense, but it does really focus our attention on the ironies of our own situations as well as the global perspective we have to take in how we provide services to our users. The other momentous levity I found in this presentation (mind you I had not had my fill of java yet) was the idea that Google is no longer king of search, but rather a "print and radio advertising company." And all the while the voice of Obi-wan Kenobi was whispering in my ear, "Durst, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our own
point of view."

WIKIS!!!By far, this was the most useful and relevant session for me today. I must pay homage to the business reference librarian at Ohio University, Chad Boeninger. You can find his photo here at the Ohio U. library research guides index if you click on the BizWiki link.

What got my attention was how he used the wiki to compile all of his business-related subject guides together and managed to lose the redundancies!!! HOW INCREDIBLY COOL IS THAT?!?! I even like his organizational style. No more handouts for instruction, it's adaptable in scope, and content can be created on the fly. In fact, I can see using this to integrate Business Ethics resources across the Business College curriculum rather than singling them out. First year experience programs? BRING THEM ON WITH WIKI for threaded discussions and multidisciplinary campus collaboration. (E and E, are you getting this?)

Momentous levity for this session: the realization that no matter what format in which you create content, no matter how easy it is to do it, once it's populated you still have to maintain it. Be careful what you wish for...

Time for sustenance, brb, --Durst

Momentous decadence: NY-style cheesecake at 11:00PM with strawberry sauce. Sometimes one just has to succumb to temptation.

Federated Search Lessons Learned - three examples here, two of which were pretty gung-ho supporters of the technology, one which still finds it a bit difficult to deal with. What gets me is that the usability studies done in each case provide such clear evidence of users actually demonstrating the "principle of least effort" in their search strategies. In using a federated/meta search technology, university students felt their searches were more successful. Even supposed "advanced searchers" like the federated search better than database-specific search interfaces. All I could say was, "DANG!"

Dubious momentous levity: the advanced search feature was made available but the people that use it are librarians! The students and faculty don't even touch it. Moving forward with this technology - in essence trying to be more like Google - seems in direct conflict with the earlier presentation today citing the search giant as nothing more than a print and t.v. advertising company.

I once read - and I forget where - that the key to getting better search results was NOT creating better search engines, but rather getting the users to create better searches. I fail to see how federated search, popular as it might be, moves us toward that goal of creating better searches. I also found it slightly amusing that searchers are disappointed to find federated searching is not as speedy as Google, yet fail to listen to the explanation. It seems, just like faster computers, it doesn't matter how fast it goes, you always want it to go faster.

Next edition: Cool Tools for web masters and I SWEAR there was something mentioned about corkscrews...