Many search engines work by creating indexes for full text, data structures that pinpoint the location of almost every word. While generally very useful, this has the consequence of increasing the number of irrelevant items in search results. ("Radisson," for example, can refer to the explorer, a hotel and resort chain, towns in Quebec and Saskatchewan, and so on.) Web searches are typically done once to find something in particular. If you want to continually monitor the arrival of new information on the web, you should use an information trapping strategy instead. In information trapping, web searches are run repeatedly, and the results aggregated as RSS feeds in a feed reader. This week we discuss the dynamic nature of libraries, texts, and audiences online, and some of the tools we can use to stay on top of the changes.
Readings for Discussion
Bradley, Phil. “![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
Search Engines: Where We Were, Are Now, and Will Ever Be,” Ariadne Magazine 47 (Apr 2006).
“Information Trapping - An Interview with Tara Calishain,” Future Perfect Publishing (3 Sep 2007).
Calishain, Tara. “Kebberfegg — Keyword Based RSS Feed Generator,” ResearchBuzz (5 Oct 2005).
Calishain, Tara. "Information Trapping 2008 Style," ResearchBuzz (29 Jan 2008).
Cohen, Daniel J. “The Single Box Humanities Search,” dancohen.org (17 Apr 2006).
Courant, Paul N. “Scholarship and Academic Libraries (and their kin) in the World of Google,” First Monday 11, no. 8 (2006).
Crane, Gregory and Alison Jones. “Text, Information, Knowledge and the Evolving Record of Humanity,” D-Lib Magazine 12, no. 3 (Mar 2006).
Cutts, Matt. “How Does Google Collect and Rank Results?” Google Librarian Center Newsletter (19 Dec 2005).
Cutts, Matt. “How Does Google Determine Which Websites are the Most ‘Trusted’?” Google Librarian Center Newsletter (19 Jan 2006).
Grant, Jen. “Google Book Search: An Introduction,” Google Librarian Center Newsletter (21 Jun 2006).
Turkel, WJ. "Luddism is a Luxury You Can't Afford," Digital History Hacks (17 Apr 2007).
Turkel, WJ. "Relevance Feedback," Digital History Hacks (20 Jan 2008).
Unsworth, John. "Scholarly Primitives: what methods do humanities researchers have in common, and how might our tools reflect this?," Humanities Computing Symposium, London (13 May 2000).
