Search Engines Web 2.0, Library 2.0- Week 8

In the perspective of "away from icebergs" I was interested in the fact that the author seems to think that having a "just in case" collection is outmoded. While I agree that there are many great tools out on the Web that libraries need to utilize, I think that there are still many users that are not Internet savvy enough to understand using Google let alone a blog. Having said this, I know that there are many great tools that we can all use to make searching and finding information better for our patrons. Just to name a few that we are using del.icio.us, flikr and myspace.

"Into a new world of librarianship" made a great point that the libraries are about making their services user-friendly. I like the idea that by using Library 2.0 products this can be made possible by allowing users to access information from home, work, and just about anywhere else.

Library 2.0 technology is great for sharing information with patrons. I recently went to a workshop for WorldCat technologies that are changing the way we think about library catalogs. They have improved upon the catalog making it a more social tool that searches and retrieves hits much like a web search engine. Their are also tools available to allow patrons to see what libraries close by their home own a copy of a book and give the patron a choice to purchase the book from Amazon and donate a portion of the sale to their local library. I think that the library world is catching on that these advances in technology are to our benefit.

For searching on the Web I choose to look for "pug rescues" and found the following hits from the search engines I chose. Exalead- first three hits were irrelevant (ebay, breeders website, and best-price.com), the next two hits were more related to my search (pugpalace with proceeds going to pug rescues, and a pug rescue adoption listing site). Clusty- all the hits were relevant and had information about pug rescues, along with hits there was a left hand side bar that broke down the hits by category with the number of links. Mooter- visual chart with topical choices to further the search, adoption & rescue being two of the buttons, and after clicking on these links I saw that all the first five hits were precise.

I thought the Clusty and Mooter were better search engines. I found that Clusty was easier for me to look over and retrieve the better search results from and maneuver around the sites.