DeWitt Clinton On The Birth of OpenSearch

May 3, 2007 – 12:04 pm

OpenSearch is a common way of querying a database for content and returning the results. The idea is that it brings sanity to the proliferation of search APIs, but a realistic view would have to admit that we’ve been trying to do that since before the development of z39.50 in libraries decades ago, and the [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (0)



Cataloging Errors

October 12, 2006 – 12:01 pm

A bibliographic instruction quiz we used to use asked students how many of Dan Brown’s books could be found in our catalog. The idea was that attentive students would dutifully search by author for ?brown, dan,? get redirected to ?Brown, Dan 1964-,? and find three books. Indeed, the expected answer was ?three.?
As it turns out, [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information | Comments (0)

OpenSearch In A Nutshell

July 19, 2006 – 12:19 pm

OpenSearch is a standard way of querying a database for content and returning the results.
The official docs note simply: ?Any website that has a search feature can make their results available in OpenSearch format,? then adds: ?Publishing your search results in OpenSearch? format will draw more people to your content, by exposing it to a [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information | Comments (2)

Context, Language, Systems

June 21, 2006 – 12:17 pm

?Bagged products? is little better than ?cookery.? I’m gonna bet that no customer has ever asked the sales people for ?bagged products,? that nobody’s ever checked the yellow pages for ?bagged products,? and without context, nobody would come close to answering a question on what the heck ?bagged products? are all about.
But we do have [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information | Comments (0)

Talking ‘Bout Library 2.0

March 7, 2006 – 12:36 pm

Users want a rich pool from which to search, simplicity, and satisfaction. One does not have to take a 50-minute instruction session to order from Amazon. Why should libraries continue to be so difficult for our users to master?
— from page 8 of the The University of California Libraries Bibliographic Services [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information | Comments (13)



Standards Cage Match

February 23, 2006 – 10:14 am

I prefaced my point about how the standards we choose in libraries isolate us from the larger stream of progress driving development outside libraries with the note that I was sure to get hanged for it.
It’s true.
I commented that there were over 140,00 registered Amazon API developers and 365 public OpenSearch targets (hey look, there’s [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Politics & Controversy | Comments (5)

Ryan Eby’s Pursuit of Live-Search

December 18, 2005 – 5:34 pm

Ryan Eby gets excited over LiveSearch. And who can blame him? I mention the preceding because it explains the following: two links leading to some good examples of livesearch in the wild.
Inquisitor is a livesearch plugin for OS X’s Safari web browser. It gives the top few hits, spelling suggestions where appropriate, and links to [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (2)

OpenSearch Spec Updated

December 13, 2005 – 12:39 pm

I just received this email from the A9 OpenSearch team:
We have just released OpenSearch 1.1 Draft 2. We hope to declare it the final version shortly, and it is already supported by A9.com. Uprading from a previous version should only take a few minutes…
OpenSearch 1.1 allows you to specify search results in HTML, Atom, or [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (4)

What’s In A Web Search?

November 3, 2005 – 9:31 pm

Sometimes the answer isn’t as interesting as the question. Consider this note from Yahoo Buzz:
On Sunday, the day before the nomination became official, [searches for] Alito sprang up a sudden 320%.
Did searches for Alito spike on tips White House staffers, or were White House Staffers vetting their nominee via the search engines?

tags: buzz, google, judge [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Politics & Controversy, Technology | Comments (0)

Findability, The Google Economy, and Libraries

October 12, 2005 – 10:06 pm

Peter Morville, author of Ambient Findability, stirred up the web4lib email list with a message about Authority and Findability. His message is about how services like Wikipedia and Google are changing our global information architecture and the meaning of ?authority.?
The reaction was quick, and largely critical, but good argument tests our thinking and weeds the [...]

By Casey | Posted in Libraries & Networked Information, Politics & Controversy, Technology | Comments (2)

Must Read: Ambient Findability

September 29, 2005 – 3:19 pm

Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability sold out at Amazon today on the first day of release. There’s a reason: it’s good.
Morville’s work is the most appropriate follow-on to the usability concepts so well promoted by Steven Krug in his Don’t Make Me Think and Jakob Nielsen in Designing Web Usability. Findability, Morville argues, is a necessary [...]

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music, Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (0)

Ambient Findability And The Google Economy

September 23, 2005 – 8:08 am

I’m only just getting into Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability, but I’m eating it up. In trying to prep the reader to understand his thesis — summed up on the front cover as ?what we find changes who we become? — Morville relates his difficulty in finding authoritative, non-marketing information about his daughter’s newly diagnosed peanut [...]

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music, Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (3)

Search, Findability, The Google Economy: How It Shapes Us

September 14, 2005 – 7:40 am

Just when I was beginning to feel a little on my own with my talk about the Google Economy here, I see two related new books are coming out. The first is Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability. The second is John Battelle’s The Search.
Findability appears to ask the big question that I’ve been pushing toward. From [...]

By Casey | Posted in Books, Movies, Music, Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (1)

Doing Relevance Ranked Full-Text Searches In MySQL

September 6, 2005 – 7:56 am

I’m going out on a limb to say MySQL’s full-text indexing and searching features are underused. They appeared in MySQL 3.23.23 (most people are using 4.x, and 5 is in development), but it’s been news to most of the people I know.
Here’s the deal, the MATCH() function can search a full-text index for a string [...]

By Casey | Posted in Technology | Comments (8)

37signals Tells Google A Thing Or Two

September 5, 2005 – 11:39 am

37signals takes on Google and suggests some improvements.

tags: 37signals, consulting firm, design, google, google search, improvements, improving google, search, search improvements, usability consulting, web, web design, web search

By Casey | Posted in Blink, Libraries & Networked Information, Technology | Comments (3)