April 2005 Archives

First there were wikis, collaborative web sites, some of which allow anyone to author or edit content, Wikipedia being a prime example. Now there are "folksonomies", a "grass-roots tagging system" for the web, standard subject terms that evolve as individuals attempt to make content available to others.

It's a hard concept to explain, but Newsweek does a good job of it in their recent article "In the New Game of Tag, All of Us Are It."

For librarians, the world really is turning upside down. Rather than using an existing system of subject terms, such as Library of Congress subject headings, to impose order, folksonomies seem evolve from the primordial soup, and according to the article, are surprisingly effective.

Examples of sites that use such tagging schemes are the photo-sharing site, Flickr and del.icio.us, a social bookmark manager.

Spontaneous order from chaos. What's the world coming to!

For a response to the article, and a better explanation of how subject headings really work, see Gary Price's article on SearchEngine.com, Newsweek Talks Tagging.

Google definitely has librarians worried; it's changing the information world as we know it and many librarians are wondering if the order will have a place for libraries and librarians.

Barbara Quint, never one to mince words, comes right out and says it in Searcher's Voice - Tick Tock,(Searcher, Feb. 2005):

"..all information professionals have known that the Universal Virtual Library is growing out of the Web and its search engines and that, some day, this emerging phenomenon will threaten and finally engulf the world of traditional, brick-and-mortar libraries." She even gives us a timeline, tied to Google's development cycle, suggesting that we have until 2011, 2015 at the latest. Don't worry, she sees hope for our future, but she suggests we start preparing...NOW. Unless, that is, you're due to retire by 2011.

Stephen Abram discusses the "Googlized landscape" in his article
The Google Opportunity by Stephen Abram (Library Journal, Feb. 2005). He asks the eternal question "Can libraries compete, complement, or cooperate? Or will we lose out?" He then goes on to list ten key things your can do in a Google world.

There's some good ideas here; the article is definitely worth reading. One of my favorite comments is "Recognize that librarians' and library works' key contributions aren't merely collecting, organizing, and delivering the information - it's improving the quality of the question." Other suggestions include "Push content out", "Get on the bandwagon early", Get into the community", just to name a few.

These two articles make good companions. Barbara's to tell us the future, and Stephen Abrams' to tell us how to prepare. Are you ready?

Vendors selling enterprise search engines have to deal with the new reality, the Google reality, that exists in today's marketplace. Google, and it's entry into enterprise search with the Google Appliance, has shaken up the industry according to Stephen E. Arnold in "How Google Has Changed Enterprise Search", Searcher Magazine, Nov./Dec. 2004. (This article is available in full-text for $2.95 from the InfoToday web site.)

According to Arnold, enterprise search vendors are having a difficult explaining why their complex search products are better than the ease and simplicity of Google. Arnold includes a table comparing public web search and enterprise search, noting the significant differences in how they work and what they're required to do.

Considering Google's positive image, the relatively low cost of the Google appliance, and their good financial position, enterprise search may never be quite the same.

I'm a big fan of search technologies that push relevant information to you when you're most likely to need it, instead of requiring that you make a conscious choice to seek it out. ResultsPlus from Westlaw is an excellent example of this method of information delivery.

So I'm intrigued by a recent announcement from Handshake Software, "Baker Donelson and Handshake Software announce the First Legal Knowledge Management Initiative under Microsoft's Office 2003 Information Bridge Framework."