Search Engine Indexing of Music and Video

Search engines try to find their sound. Stefanie Olsen. CNET News.com
This article looks at the efforts of search engines to index multimedia files, and provide access to music and video.

Noah Wyle to Take Lead Role in "The Librarian"

TNT Pages Wyle for 'Librarian'. Zap2it.com. May 27, 2004.
Noah Wyle will star in the lead role in TNT's action-adventure "The Librarian." His character, "Flynn", is in charge of a collection of mythical objects located beneath the New York Public Library.

Magic Book Technology Developed in New Zealand

Books get interactive makeover. Mark Ward. BBC News. May 24, 2004.
Researchers have discovered a way to overlay animations and images on textbooks, children's books, and others having illustrations.

Little Difference Found in Search Results

Study Questions Google's Long-Term Dominance. Matt Hines. CNET News.com. May 25, 2004.
A study released Tuesday by Vividence finds similarity in search results among the major search engines, and that Google ranks last in getting people to click on its advertisements.

A9 Chief on Search Technology

"Future of Search Will Make you Dizzy." Ryan Naraine. Internetnews.com. May 20, 2004.
Udi Manber, PhD, head of Amazon.com's A9 subsidiary, describes challenges facing the search industry. "We need a science around measuring relevancy."

How an IPO can Affect Corporate Culture

Google founders face wealth and a culture change. Carol Hymowitz. Wall Street Journal (via Naples Daily News). May 24, 2004.
Google's founders claim that their company will maintain its democratic corporate culture, but IPOs often lead to divisiveness and resentment among a company's employees.

Recommended Search Sites

Sites to try when other search engines fail you. Michael Bazeley. Knight Ridder Newspapers (via Sun Herald). May 23, 2004.
This article lists seven recommended search sites beyond Yahoo! and Google.

Newsreaders Examined

A Scan of the Headline Scanners. Ryan Singel. Wired News. May 21, 2004.
The author evaluates four of the leading newsreaders.

Gmail Rumor Untrue

Gmail Bug Sparks Storage Rumors. Amit Asaravala. Wired News. May 19, 2004.
Acording to Google, a rumor that the company will offer Gmail customers 1 terabyte of email storage space is untrue.

Yahoo! Search Results Improving

Yahoo Results Getting More Similar to Google. Search Engine News. May 18, 2004.
Thumbshots.com has found that there is about a 40% overlap in the top 20 search results of Yahoo and Google.

Google Plans 1 Terabyte E-mail Storage Limit

Google tests waters with 1,000GB e-mail limit. Stephen Shankland. CNET News.com. May 18, 2004.
Although still in the testing stage, Google's Gmail service has introduced a new storage limit of 1 million megabytes.

ICANN Allegations Dismissed

ICAN wins round in Internet suit. Declan McCullagh. CNET News.com. May 18, 2004.
U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz is not convinced by VeriSign's argument that ICANN has become a regulator of the domain name ystem.

Vivisimo

A Cure for Info Overload. Michael Yeomans. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. May 18, 2004.
Begun in 1998 as a project at Carnegie Mellon University, Vivisimo has become a successful search technology company. [Vivisimo]

Microsoft Taking on Internet Search

Microsoft Revving up its own Search Engines. The Daily News Online (AP). May 17, 2004.
The software behemoth is finally turning its attention to search in an effort to catch up with the industry leader.

Google for Dummies (Book Review)

Google for Dummies

Brad Hill. Hoboken: Wiley Publishing, Inc. 346 pp. (0-7645-4420-9).
Google is the most popular search engine in the world, but most users do not take full advantage of its search features. In Google for Dummies® author Brad Hill shows the reader how to become a power Googler with the use of standard and special Google search operators. (While these operators can be employed on Google’s Advanced Search page, they should be included in the search repertoire of every reference librarian.) The author gives instructions for advanced image searching as well.
In addition to its standard search Google offers some less well-known specialized search engines. These include ones for U.S. government and university information, as well as search engines indexing more technical information on Linux, BSD, Apple Macintosh and Microsoft. The government search engine is especially useful. All domain extensions are covered by it, not just .gov, thereby providing broad coverage of public policy, law, defense, and other U.S. government-related issues.
Other Google search areas covered are Google Groups (Usenet), Froogle, and Google Catalogs. The Google Toolbar is covered in great detail, and Chapter 8 is devoted to the projects found in Google Labs.
While much of the information presented here can be found on Google's Help pages, Hill presents enough background information, tips, tricks, shortcuts and additional resources to make this book worthwhile reading.

Information Industry 2003

The Information Playground. Carol Tenopir, Gayle Baker and William Robinson. Library Journal. May 15, 2004.
The authors highlight recent events and trends in the information industry.

ICANN Srutinized

ICANN's Latest Challenge Tests New Internet Services. Anick Jesdanum. (AP) Detroit News. May 14, 2004.
As the hearing date approaches for VeriSign's lawsuit against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the controversy surrounding the organization is reviewed. [ICANN] [ICANNWatch]

Yahoo! to Compete with GMail

Yahoo! Blasts Back at Google. Andrew Orlowski. The Register. May 14, 2004.
Yahoo! - Google competition continues as Yahoo! announces the expansion of its own email service.

CNN Switches to Yahoo

Yahoo Takes Google's Spot on CNN. Jim Hu. CNET News.com. May 13, 2004.
CNN drops Google in favor of Yahoo as provider of its search results.

Proposed Revision of DMCA

Congress Mulls Revision to DMCA. Declan McCullagh. CNET News.com. May 12, 2004.
A House of Representatives subcommittee is looking at proposed amendments to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which would make it legal to for people to create personal copies of their own DVDs.

Intelliseek Announces Blog Search Engine

Intelliseek Launches BlogPulse.com. WebProNews. May 11, 2004.
Intelliseek has has created a blog search engine, BlogPulse.com, which tracks people and issues being discussed in more than a million Web logs.

New Search Engine Announced

100.com to Rival Traditional Search Engines. (PRWEB). eMediaWire. May 11, 2004.
Three years in the making, 100.com plans to employ human editors to review and monitor search terms, so that the search engine can display the 100 most relevant sites for each category. Plans include the provision of news, weather, chat, and a diary in addition to the search service.

Interview with Google Technology Director

Google's Man Behind the Curtain. Stefanie Olsen. CNET News.com. May 10, 2004.
Craig Silverstein comments on the future of search and issues facing Google. "... talking to a computer will be just like talking to a reference librarian."

Web Usage Improving

Web-User Satisfaction on the Upswing. Dennis O'Reilly. PC World. May 7, 2004.
A survey conducted last year by Nielsen Norman Group finds that people are more likely to find what they are looking for on the Web than they were in 1997. They are more likely to use search engines and are more precise in their searching. "... the only people who who make any use of advanced search options are search engine programmers and librarians."

Search Engine Influence on Web Usage

The New Gatekeepers. Gregory M. Lamb. Christian Science Monitor. May 6, 2004.
This article shows how the Big Three search engines provide search results that are shallow and commercial. There is much of the Web that they are missing.

Aims of Google's Competitors

Web Search for Tomorrow. Ben Elgin. BusinessWeek Online. May 6, 2004.
This column discusses the focus of search engine research by the likes of Yahoo! and Microsoft. Google's continued dominance is not assured.

War of the Search Engines

Search Wars: Battle of the Search Superpowers. Danny Sullivan. ClickZ. May 5, 2004.
Columnist Danny Sullivan gives a brief history of competition in the search engine industry.

3-D Search Engine

Researchers develop 3-D search engine. (AP) Mid-day.com. May 4, 2004.
A Purdue University professor has developed a search engine that searches catalogs of three-dimensional objects such as industrial parts.

Digital Reference

Introduction to Reference Work in the Digital Age. Joseph Janes. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. 213 pp. 2003. (ISBN: 1-55570-429-8).
Written for students as well as veteran reference librarians, Introduction to Reference Work in the Digital Age covers the subject of digital reference in both its theoretical and practical aspects. Author Joseph Janes, Associate Professor and Chair of Library and Information Science at the Information School of the University of Washington, and Founding Director of the Internet Public Library, places electronic reference in the context of the history and traditional values of reference librarianship. What has long distinguished the library profession from those of other information workers has been its emphasis on service. (For example, see Samuel S. Green’s classic 1876 essay “Personal Relations Between Librarians and Readers.”) As the author emphasizes, reference work is at a turning point, and it is crucial to maintain our service orientation as we explore non-traditional means of providing information. Librarians' failure to do so in the age of Google is to risk becoming irrelevant. Janes also discusses how digital reference has forced us to reexamine longstanding issues involving the reference interview and patron privacy. Throughout the second half of his book, he provides valuable checklists and considerations for use in establishing and managing digital reference services, including staffing issues.

Google search results revisited

Changes in search results disturbing. Jonathan Krim. Washington Post. May 3, 2004.
Columnist Jonathan Krim reviews changes in the way Google's sponsored links are displayed.

Ask Jeeves's Realiance on Google

Ask Jeeves if Google is a help, and the answer may surprise you. Kevin Coughlin. Star-Ledger. May 2, 2004.
This short article describes how search engine advertising works. Ask Jeeves, owner of search engine Teoma, relies on Google advertising for nearly 70 percent of its revenue.