Search Vs Navigation

Watch This Video: One Powerful Tool

Lets talk a little bit about searching for information versus navigating for it. Search Vs Navi. Navigation systems are popping up all around us. Most new cars offer a built in navi systems and even my latest workout watch has a built in GPS unit. Is navigation the best way to find information? Do you direct patrons to wander the stacks until they find what they want? Have you ever been lost and stopped for directions – did you make it directly to your destination or wind up lost again after two or three turns? Did your "navigation" turn into a search for your destination??

Now there is no doubt in my mind that many, MANY of you can drive right to the exact spot in the stacks or surf the Dewey Decimal system to find the exact item that you are looking for. Can you do it on a computer????? Dewey hasn’t changed his Decimal System in a few years, the Web, on the other hand has changed a zillion times since you started reading this. The world of search and the technology of search are changing just as fast. The cool thing is that we are keeping up with it!

Basically, there are three different types of searches that you can do on a computer – you can search the computer that you are using, which is a desktop search. You can also search the entire Internet using search tools like Google or Yahoo. The third kind of search is an enterprise search. Enterprise search refers to locating information that lives on the organizations intranet, file servers or website. Here is more information from our good friends at Wikipedia: definition

How does searching work at OCLS.info?
You may know this, I guess it is common knowledge, but I wasn’t aware of it, even after working in IS for 18 months and sitting two desks away from the Search Master herself, Sheri Chambers! OCLS our own Google Search appliances. (An appliance is geek speak for a dedicated piece of hardware, which is semi-geek speak for a special purpose computer.) The first appliance was acquired around 2004 and was named Minnie (Mini actually). Minnie’s job is to search OCLS.info and the Orange Peel. This dedicated computer works at night indexing our website and every morning returns a list of indexes that are then, magically, made available to us. The very cool thing is that we have control of how or what Minnie returns to our patrons. What does that mean? Well, if you have an important initiative going on (Summer Reading Program) or want to focus people or bring attention to something, we can dictate how search results are returned and put those links at the top of the search return list. Think about that for a second, can you think of links that should be at the top for a specific search? Tell your manager!

The second Google appliance is named Mickey and it is just coming on-line. Mickey is newer and will be dedicated to searching ocls.info (Minnie will take a well deserved break and only search the Orange Peel). Mickey will also be able to create a fresh Site Index every morning. That means our site will always have an up-to-date Site Map without having to manually build it. (more Geek Speak that means our searches will be updated and currrent as of that morning, so if something was moved from the OCLS.info page for instance, Mickey will know where it is) Here is a short 2 minute video for those that are really curious about what a Mickey will do for our search capabilities: Mickey Video

The other search tool at OCLS is the federated search, which is primarily a librarian’s tool that allows a search to be tailored to specific subject areas. For example, if we were to do a virtual gallery on the topic of Bob Marley, we could include a federated search in the VG that searches for Reggae music, Jamaica, the Marley family, etc. Search Central is another example of a federated search.

The point of all of this great information is that we have some very powerful search capabilities right at our fingertips. When you are looking for something or working with a patron to find information on our website, try using the search box at the top of the homepage. Even better – point out the search box to the patron and demo it so they can learn to fish too.

eXplorers –We are all creatures of habit, and those habits are based on our personal preferences. At one time, I was a devout user of the search engine Alta Vista. Remember it? Then came Google and it became so popular that it has become it’s own verb!

Believe it or not, there are other search engines out there! Here is a list of a few of them, try them out and see what you think. My advice is to search for the same thing on all of them and see how they perform for you:

Lexxe- natural language search
Hakia - semantic search engine
Quintura - visual search engine
Bing - have you seen the commercial? Bing Commercial

In your blog, Tell us about your experience with these Google alternatives

Adventures - So far, we have covered Social Networking, Mobile Technology and with this month, Web Search. Here are two links to articles that currently deal with the topics that we have covered. This “stuff” is relevant to your life, our culture and our history!

Images from the Iran Election – these are coming through via Twitter -

Taptu – this is a web search application that works with your mobile web device – ie Iphone/Touch or web enabled phone: