November 10, 2008
Librarians Want to Out-Google Google With a Better Search Engine
Have you ever wished for a personal reference librarian, an information guru to point you to the most reliable sites whenever you search the Web? A new search-engine project aims to simulate something like that. The trick? Weighting search results so that librarians’ picks rise to the top.
Called Reference Extract, the project is being developed by the Online Computer Library Center and the information schools of Syracuse University and the University of Washington. OCLC is an international cooperative that shares resources among more than 69,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories. A $100,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is covering planning costs.
According to the project proposal, the search engine “will be built for maximum credibility by relying on the expertise and credibility judgments of librarians from around the globe.”
One of the founders is Michael B. Eisenberg, dean emeritus and professor at Washington’s information school, who has called for people to submit ideas on the project’s Web site. “Google is everywhere, easy to use, and somewhat effective in offering useful results. But, I can’t always trust the results,” he wrote. “Is there a way to improve on that?” The idea is to cull and promote recommendations from tens of thousands of librarians around the world. No word on the technical architecture that would power the search engine.
(The vision reminds me of The Librarian, the uncannily human-like software in Neal Stephenson’s famous science-fiction novel Snow Crash.)
Entrepreneurs have been trying for years to beat Google at its game. Could the combined expertise of tens of thousands of librarians conquer the juggernaut? —Lisa Guernsey
Posted on Monday November 10, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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$100,000 to compete with a company whose net worth is $150 billion? Good luck!
— rt Nov 10, 03:06 PM #
Howdy, I’m on the research team and wanted to clear upa few things.
1. This is just a planning grant. The current grant is for planning and exploring the feasability.
2. The point is not to go toe to toe with Google, hopefully the team can partner with them as well as others. The point is to build a system of credibility throughout the web and search. Yes, search Reference Extract directly, or possibly have Google highlight highly credible results in their results through the Reference Extract data…it is all about Mash-ups and cooperation, not defeat and destroy.
— David Lankes Nov 10, 03:50 PM #
Agree that “defeat and destroy” is not a sensible approach, David.
That said, we librarians are bringing reference back [grin]:
http://shelfcheck.blogspot.com/2008/11/shelf-check-293.html
— Emily Lloyd Nov 10, 09:00 PM #
Spific.com basically sorts through the best sites already, what does this add?
http://www.spific.com
— John Nov 10, 09:15 PM #
One big time saver would be to consult with the folks who have studied the most alternative search engines: The Team at www.altsearchengines.com
— Charles Knight Nov 10, 11:38 PM #
Hope the budding consortium does not forget to include Brewster Kahle and the remarkable open operation he has in San Francisco and elsewhere.
— llevitt Nov 11, 05:35 AM #
Isn’t this what Semantic Search is supposed to bring to the world?
— Bill Nov 11, 08:01 AM #
So, I took a brief tour of spific.com. When I clicked on the Science and Technology option in the Spific Topic menu, the first 4 results: 3 advertisements for Sony and Scientific American and a call for apprentices at the Office of Naval Research. Using the “customized” search eliminates some of the ads but, still, would you want your top result for “myeloma” to come from wikiedia? Who are their “experts?” We can do better! Contrary to popular belief, google is not a god. Good luck to OCLC on this endeavor.
— Lisa Nov 11, 11:18 AM #
I’d rather have the results weighted so that picks by experts in the field show up at the top rather than picks by librarians.
I teach second-semester freshman composition classes, which include conducting research. I consider myself an “information guru” and probably more qualified than a librarian to find credible websites.
— Elizabeth Nov 11, 11:50 AM #
I wonder why the multiplicity of databases aren’t combined and made more easily searchable?
— Sarah Nov 11, 12:44 PM #
Elizabeth, I am a mere librarian, so I highly resemble your remark (grin). Actually, what I wish to challenge is the tenet that there exists such a thing as an “information guru” these days. What seems to be happening in the current online environment is that everyone and no one is an expert. Users don’t buy into that hierarchy of experts any more; they want to be able to find information quickly and decide for themselves whether it is relevant, accurate, etc. There never was and never will be a single authority or authoritative source, database, librarian or professor that will satisfy every user’s need all the time. The best thing we can do is teach students the skills to do this for themselves.
— Lisa Nov 11, 03:12 PM #
As long as companies, businesses, journals and sources cannot pay to be put to the top of the list. It would be nice to see credible sources be at the top. Peer reviewed by experts. But also nice to have experts in the various fields be allowed to annotate the various databases, as they have done for example the protein data base (PDB). Raw unannotated data is not that useful. Plus references and the original data should be made available, as it now is by many journals, universities, government labs, …
— KJJ Nov 11, 04:08 PM #
Elizabeth,
I take exception to your comment that since you teach an English class on researching that you are more qualified than a librarian as an “information guru.” Do you even know what librarians do? The MLS is an entire degree dedicated to connecting people with information, considering both aspects of human behavior and organization of information. A librarian’s life work is evaluation of sources, recommendation of sources and organization of information.
— ACB Nov 11, 04:58 PM #
David,
I wish the exploration much success. I do hope that whatever the outcome Reference Extract does not lose the elegant simplicity of getting to something without much effort, as Google has done so nicely.
— Tom Nov 11, 05:38 PM #
But will librarians even be able to agree on what constitutes a credible site? After some of the studies that have come out, I’d be arguing in favor of including Wikipedia in such a search engine, maybe not near the top, but definitely in the mix, and I’ll bet a lot of my colleagues (I am a librarian) would disagree. So who’s going to be the final arbiter?
— Melissa Belvadi Nov 12, 06:09 AM #
As a librarian, I am very offended by Elizabeth’s comment. I am an academic reference librarian and the students I assist (not all, but many) don’t have a clue – even after research instruction from their English instructors. The best part of my job is helping these students to become research literate.
— Gayla Nov 24, 06:41 PM #
Kudos to Elizabeth for teaching these skills to her classes. There is a lot of interest among high school and academic librarians wondering just what students do know when they get to college, and what they learn additionally once they are students there – either via professors, academic librarians and/or trial and error. Fortunately information literacy is beginning to be recognized as a body of learning that facilitates all other areas of inquiry. Skills learned in the pursuit of information in one field translate to others, building on training and experience. There is room at all levels for increased facilitation, guidance, and depth of knowledge.
— K. Koskela Nov 25, 04:35 PM #
I agree about “don’t recreate the wheel”. Instead set up a way to refine the Google search. What I would love to see the following within Google. Start with a search. See what you get. Then push a button that says something like “Ask A Librarian”. Then the initial search result would be pared down to a set of credible resources from within that initial search. Never try to replace Google. Kids won’t buy into it. They love it and I do to. It would be better like an add on, like Images or News within Google. In the end you still have to educate students on proper ways to evaluate a web site. That in itself is a life lesson.
— Ann Nov 26, 11:56 AM #
I’m a librarian, and I don’t like this idea. I just think of all the times I read librarian periodicals and am disturbed by personal ideology slipping into articles and book reviews. I think this can be somewhat dangerous in that it might compromise objectivity in the results one gets from Internet searches.
— Jackie Nov 26, 09:51 PM #
I agree with Ann. I think our job as librarians is ensure that there is a place where those who are interested can get accurate information.
— FAITH Nov 27, 03:02 AM #