Tag Archives: search

Media, On the Web

Librarian Powered Search

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librarian action figureThere is a new search engine being developed, Reference Extract. It’s a search engine that gives preference to results tagged by librarians. So where Google and others are trying to remove the human part of the search equation, the folks at Reference Extract are trying to harness the expertise of all the card carrying MLS people out there.

This trained “professional filter” is exactly why I will always watch the network news and read newspapers. There is just too much bunk out there that I want to know that some sort of professional has done the leg work and sorted it for me. But I’m not sure how successful Reference Extract will be…

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News, On the Web

Google’s knol

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I can’t make up my mind just how big of a deal this is. To be honest, I never really dug into Wikipedia, never having enough faith in what the masses would post. But then I discovered the Bhamwiki. It was like a light bulb that suddenly turned on. I got it. Our little local wiki is exactly what the whole Wikimedia is supposed to be about. It’s a great place to look up info on local authors, books,publishers etc.

And now Google is throwing their hat in the same ring. The only difference, that I can find, between Wiki and Google is that:

1. Google will restrict entry editing to a slate of topic experts, to kick things off.

2. Google will allow these topic experts to share in the ad revenue stream generated by their entries.

Are there more differences? I’m certainly not qualified to write anything, but I’ve been a fan of Google for a while and I’m wondering why they keep spreading out into new areas, beyond their core search business. Maybe it is just to stem the people clicking from Google search links to Wikipedia, as this guy’s non-scientific test highlights.