Hmm, the well-known ASK (anomalous state of knowledge) model with its depiction of iterative retrieval requests by a human being to “the” information system in order to solve a badly-understood problem by supplying underspecified resources
[see Belkin N, Oddy R, Brooks H (1982) ASK for information retrieval: I. Journal of Documentation 38(2):61-71]
works just a little too well with this view from The Church of Google. What on earth would Paul Kantor say if it turned out that ASK were actually a metaphysical theory?
Too bad it’s not this easy to identify the most likely sources of spin in information channels OTHER than Wikipedia. Thanks, Virgil (and best of luck with that goal of becoming the top hit for “Virgil” on Google. Here’s my contribution to that effort!)
Very interesting preliminary findings from Search Engine Land on possible differences in how Westerners and Chinese view (and value) presentation of Internet search results. If, in fact, the Chinese prefer “hot and noisy” in their Internet search engines (which is suggested as one of the reasons as to why they choose Baidu over Google), does the same hold true for relevance in their OPACs and other library applications? And, if so, how is it possible that this research isn’t being done and published in journals like JASIST, I wonder?
Human-mediated search engine optimization is the strategy behind new search engine Mahalo. The concept sounds similar to some of the librarian-generated search sites, but this one has a lot more venture capital than librarians ever seem to warrant. “Mahalo” is Hawaiian for “welcome,” in case you were wondering, but the content is currently pretty sparse. They’re also going Google one better: instead of just saying, “Don’t be evil,” they’re proactively screening sites to insure quality content. Hmm… maybe we should spend a little time in the Mahalo Greenhouse, after all. Let a thousand flowers bloom!
