Category Archives: Search

One Possible OCLC Solution

I am going to be very presumptuous and put forth a possible solution to the OCLC situation. Ready? Divide OCLC in two. One entity, which we will call OCLC.org (just to keep from having to make up some name for … Continue reading

Posted in Cataloging, Ethics, ILS, Libraries, Licensing, News, OCLC, Online Databases, Online Services, OPAC, Open Access, Open Source, Search, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

How the Digital Revolution Changed Our World

An visual chart in the current Newsweek sums up many of the changes we have seen over the past decade: Exactly How Much Are The Times A-Changin’? The categories that are in decline speak volumes: The US Postal Service is … Continue reading

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OpenWith.org

You know the frustration:  you have a file, but either don’t know what program you need to open it, or you don’t have the program available where you need it. OpenWith.org can help locate a free program for most any … Continue reading

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Accent Folding

A List Apart has been a steady source of thought-provoking inspiration over the years, not only from a website building perspective, but also because much of what they publish crosses boundaries and impacts other projects and interests in my life. … Continue reading

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Unusual Articles

If you spend any amount of time perusing Wikipedia, you will encounter articles on topics that are either exceedingly trivial, offbeat, or hard to classify.  For those who seek these articles, they have a page for it: Wikipedia: Unusual Articles … Continue reading

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How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age

How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age (pdf) is a report from Project Information Literacy, maintained by the Information School at the University of Washington that contains a few surprises for libraries: Course readings were the first place … Continue reading

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Springo

I have always been a fan of the idea of creating a mediated search engine – one in which the results have been reviewed in order to ensure a lean, relevant results list. The reality of the idea is, shall … Continue reading

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HealthBase, continued

A follow-up to yesteday’s post on HealthBase: It wasn’t what I was thinking of when I provided a caveat regarding Wikipedia being used as a source, but apparently some search results have offbeat listings, occasionally with negative associations. My caveat … Continue reading

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HealthBase

HealthBase is a health information search tool created by Netbase that should be on your short list of resources. Search results are drawn from a diverse range of resources, including WebMD, PubMed, Medline Plus, and the Mayo Clinic.  NetBase uses … Continue reading

Posted in Libraries, Medical, Online Databases, Search | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Google Library?

As the Google Books settlement works its way to becoming reality, it is becoming apparent that Google Books will be transformed into something very much resembling a library. Think of how this might change our roles in society. found via … Continue reading

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BookChaser

I wrote a post about the BookChaser Editions service last year, but encountered a reference to another service they offer, and this led me to others: BookChaser Covers : compares cover images available from Amazon, Google Books, LibraryThing, and Open … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Libraries, Library 2.0, OCLC, Online Services, Search | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

PLOS Currents : Influenza

For those who have been following  H1N1 influenza virus news (and those who might expect to get questions about it), the Public Library of Science (PLOS) and Google have launched a new mashup service: PLOS Currents : Influenza is built … Continue reading

Posted in Google, Government, Libraries, Library 2.0, Medical, News, Online Databases, Online Services, Open Access, Publishing, Search | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

TinEye Reverse Image Search

TinEye is an image search engine with a twist:  you provide it with an image, and it returns a list of websites utilizing that image. I can quickly think of a few really good uses of this service: You have … Continue reading

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ISBN-UPC-EAN Lookups

If you are involved with the selection or ordering process, then you are very likely to be familiar with searching for items by the International Standard Book Number, or ISBN.  The newer, 13-digit ISBN is actually based on the European … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Libraries, Library 2.0, OCLC, Online Services, Publishing, Search, XML | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

National Library of Australia’s Search Prototype

The National Library of Australia has launched the beta of their new search interface, SBDS Prototype (SBDS stands for Single Business Discovery Service, I think), and the search experience is not only better than any other library-related search I have … Continue reading

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Open Jurist

Open Jurist is a great add-on to the free case law resources I wrote about a few days ago.  Consisting of over 600,000 opinions from the federal court system, including the United States Supreme Court and the Federal Appellate Courts.  … Continue reading

Posted in Google, Government, History, Online Services, Search, Web Design | 1 Comment

Feedmil

Feedmil is a search engine for RSS feeds.  It does this specific task very, very well.  Search for feeds relating to any keywords you wish, and modify your results using a set of slides that emphasize/de-emphasize words that show up … Continue reading

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Common Chemistry

Common Chemistry is a resource from Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) which allows one to search for chemical information using a variety of search terms, whether the terms be common names (aspirin, table salt), basic chemical names (acetylsalicylic acid, sodium chloride), … Continue reading

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Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram|Alpha is a new type of internet resource that has just gone “live”.  Many are calling it a new type of “search engine”, which it technically is, but it isn’t a search engine in the way we are used to … Continue reading

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Google and Microformats

Google has made the jump into supporting Microformats as well as RDFa, calling their implementation “Rich Snippets”! This is great news on several different levels. Semantic markup within web pages provides a way to target searches much more effectively.  TechCrunch … Continue reading

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