Comments on: Educating our systems http://copac.ac.uk/development-blog/2008/12/educating-our-systems/ What's happening behind the scenes at Copac Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:08:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: bethan http://copac.ac.uk/development-blog/2008/12/educating-our-systems/comment-page-1/#comment-72 bethan Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:04:14 +0000 http://copac.ac.uk/development-blog/?p=142#comment-72 I have to say that I thought the title of the workshop was rather misleading - very little was actually said throughout the day about 'competing with Google'. The theme that really stood out for me was that of giving users various paths to resource discovery, and allowing them to choose those which are best for them - including Google. Several libraries mentioned that they are exposing their journal holdings to Google Scholar, to give students access to quality information in an environment they are comfortable and familiar with. On re-reading my post, I see that I managed to completely leave this aspect out, for which I apologise! Regular readers of this blog will know that we at Copac have been working to open up our content to Google through spidering - we are aiming to get the maximum possible exposure for our content, and are perfectly willing to exploit Google to get it :) Unfortunately, I think any developments in library resource searching will reference Google (at least for the foreseeable future), just as anything a little bit interactive is 'library 2.0'. We have to accept that people will use these terms as easy contextualisation tools, even when they are not actually accurate descriptions of what is under discussion. Quite a long-winded way of basically agreeing with you! I have to say that I thought the title of the workshop was rather misleading – very little was actually said throughout the day about ‘competing with Google’. The theme that really stood out for me was that of giving users various paths to resource discovery, and allowing them to choose those which are best for them – including Google. Several libraries mentioned that they are exposing their journal holdings to Google Scholar, to give students access to quality information in an environment they are comfortable and familiar with. On re-reading my post, I see that I managed to completely leave this aspect out, for which I apologise!

Regular readers of this blog will know that we at Copac have been working to open up our content to Google through spidering – we are aiming to get the maximum possible exposure for our content, and are perfectly willing to exploit Google to get it :)

Unfortunately, I think any developments in library resource searching will reference Google (at least for the foreseeable future), just as anything a little bit interactive is ‘library 2.0′. We have to accept that people will use these terms as easy contextualisation tools, even when they are not actually accurate descriptions of what is under discussion.

Quite a long-winded way of basically agreeing with you!

]]> By: Owen Stephens http://copac.ac.uk/development-blog/2008/12/educating-our-systems/comment-page-1/#comment-71 Owen Stephens Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:23:00 +0000 http://copac.ac.uk/development-blog/?p=142#comment-71 Although the development of new search products for library resources is defintely interesting, I find it slightly worrying that this is being thought of in terms of 'competing with Google'. We should rather be thinking of how we can best exploit Google and other search engines. Systems like Primo et al should open up new possibilities for this but supporting 'cool Uris' for records and allowing output of records and results sets in web friendly formats like RSS. Amazon has a search engine, sure - but it doesn't treat this as 'competition' to google. If you search for a book title in google, you are much more likely to get the amazon page for that book at the top of the results list than any library record - this is something libraries need to look at exploiting their systems, data and techniques like SEO (search engine optimization), sitemaps, and website analytics Although the development of new search products for library resources is defintely interesting, I find it slightly worrying that this is being thought of in terms of ‘competing with Google’. We should rather be thinking of how we can best exploit Google and other search engines. Systems like Primo et al should open up new possibilities for this but supporting ‘cool Uris’ for records and allowing output of records and results sets in web friendly formats like RSS.

Amazon has a search engine, sure – but it doesn’t treat this as ‘competition’ to google. If you search for a book title in google, you are much more likely to get the amazon page for that book at the top of the results list than any library record – this is something libraries need to look at exploiting their systems, data and techniques like SEO (search engine optimization), sitemaps, and website analytics

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