Google - Public Libraries Online

Bento Box Searching

Paul Jackson — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 17:53:52 +0000

Bento is Japanese for ‘lunch box.’ How it became a name for a Search engine plug in is beyond me unless one thinks of the smorgasbord of the information it supplies as “results” of a single search through many databases. We’ve seen something like this with the Knowledge Graph in Google, the box to the right of search results. We’ve seen it in early Clustering search engines such as Clusty, now called Yippy!, with categorizing on the left side of the screen taking you to sites under each subcategory.

So it seems libraries, at least a few academic libraries and public libraries, have caught up with this single search process, known also as federated search, (rather than searching fields in the library catalog,) as a way to introduce the researcher to articles, books, and resources valued enough to show up in the search. Which algorithms are used to go search sites other than just the library or libraries within academic institutions are not always given. For example with Google, we don’t know if there are items valued by payment, by peer review, or customer searching; giving the searcher what the computer thinks the customer wants.

I’ve been a critique of searching different engines which seem to want to tell the customer, “This is what we think you asked for,” instead of giving results one might have wanted which show both sides or even every perspective of a given event, subject, or category. This may be the reason there are now many private search engines. These are the engines that do not track what you search and do not leave cookies on your machine. Oscobo, WhaleSlide, Gyffu, and GoodGopher which have been launched in the last two or three years. Other well-known engines are StartPage, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, and Privatelee.

So as we start using these ‘boxes’ of information we hope we will see complete information, not algorithm-generated results, nor subjective selection. One search engine used mainly for scientific research may be the way of future searching. Semantic Scholar’s AI analyzes research papers, articles, journals, and through data mining pulls out authors, references, figures, and topics. It then links all of this information together into a comprehensive picture of cutting-edge research. This engine sounds like a few of the early MIND-mapping or VISUAL mapping engines which brought related topics to the surface from searching related topics. Unfortunately we don’t see those engines anymore, only the mind-mapping do it yourself software. Over the last ten years there have been several books about semantic search; several available from ALA. We are now seeing many books using terms like Knowledge Graph equating much with the same process as semantic searching.

Resources:

Mother lode of searching databases:

Looking for a specific category database?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_databases

Searching the CIA declassified database.

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/sep/22/crest-search-guide/

Ways to search breaking news stories.

http://blog.archive.org/2017/09/21/tv-news-chyron-data/

Tracking corporate violations of law and regulations.

Article: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/from-enron-to-wells-fargo-expanded-violation-tracker-now-covers-18-years-of-corporate-crime–misconduct-300521979.html

Databases:

https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/violation-tracker

https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/

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Google Now Directs Users to Library Ebooks

Carrie O’Maley Voliva — Fri, 15 Dec 2017 14:32:31 +0000

In a move likely to increase e-book circulation at libraries across the country, Overdrive has partnered with Google to ensure users searching for books can see whether or not they are available electronically at their local library.

After typing the book title into the main Google search box, the Knowledge Panel displays results for buying the book with local library e-holdings below that. When the user clicks on their local library, they are taken to the Overdrive results page where they can either place the book on hold or check it out. If the book is not available as an e-book at any local libraries, the message “no results found near you. Please try another location” appears.

Google has not disclosed how it’s pulling the Overdrive information, but a recent Library Journal article said, “It appears that OverDrive has enabled Google’s web crawlers to access basic metadata regarding the content that the company has licensed to its customers, and Google is using geolocation information from IP addresses and mobile devices to refine individual user results, similar to the way Google would refine searches for restaurants or events.”

Overdrive began partnering with libraries in 2003 and now has 36,000 partners around the world. My library (Indianapolis Public Library) is one of the many libraries with the Overdrive platform and we’ve been offering e-books for many years. However, I still surprise patrons every day with the news that they can read e-books for free from the library! If we’re still working on publicizing our e-books to patrons who walk into the library, reaching those who don’t physically use the library is an even greater challenge. This new partnership with Google may just meet those reluctant library users right where they’re at.

Although some testers have argued that the search isn’t perfect (sometimes Google incorrectly shows an e-book isn’t available at the library and, of course, Google doesn’t display holdings from other e-book platforms), I would argue that the small imperfections aren’t much of a detriment to the overall goal of promoting library collections. Power library e-book users will already know to go directly to their library catalogs, and those unaware of the library’s e-book holdings will still see that their local library does indeed have e-books and will hopefully investigate further.

References

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2017/10/technology/ebooks/google-directs-users-library-ebooks-overdrive/

http://blogs.overdrive.com/front-page-library-news/2017/10/26/google-overdrive-connecting-readers-e-books-local-library/

https://company.overdrive.com/company/who-we-are/history/

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What Google’s Algorithm Change Means for Library Websites

Ginny Mies — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 19:01:02 +0000

On April 21, Google changed its algorithm to give preference to mobile-friendly sites on searches performed on mobile devices. This means that sites that aren’t designated as “mobile-friendly” by Google sink to the bottom in mobile search results while sites that do pass the test appear toward the top. Dubbed “Mobilegeddon” by the technology press, this indexing change struck fear into businesses and organizations that haven’t yet optimized their sites for mobile. But realistically, your library can weather Mobilegeddon if it has the right tools, knowledge, and planning in place.

What Makes a Site “Mobile-Friendly”

So what exactly qualifies as “mobile-friendly?” If you’ve ever tried to navigate a site on your smartphone that isn’t optimized for mobile, you may have experienced the frustration of not being able to read text because it’s too small or accidentally clicking on the wrong link. These are two of the elements Google checks: text size and link distance.

The other element Google checks is your site’s mobile viewport configuration. A viewport determines how a webpage is displayed on a mobile device. Without a viewport, mobile devices will display your page at desktop width, scaled to fit the screen, making it a pain to navigate. A responsive, mobile-friendly website has different layouts for different screen sizes: from large tablets to smartphones with 4-inch displays.

How to Check the Mobile-Friendliness of Your Site

If you’re not sure where your website stands in mobile-friendliness, Google helpfully provides you with a few free tools:

You can also test individual pages using Google’s Mobile-Friendly test, which analyzes your page’s URL and reports if it has a mobile-friendly design.
Google’s Mobile Usability feature, part of the Webmaster toolset, can help you identify mobile usability issues with your site.
Fetch as Google lets you see your web pages the way Google’s smartphone crawler would.
Chrome’s Device Mode and Mobile Emulation tool lets you check your mobile website’s responsiveness across various screen sizes, and assess its performance across varying connection speeds.
If you need further assistance or explanation, you can always ask questions (and find answers!) at Google’s Webmaster Central Help Forum.

How Your Content Management System Can Help

Many content management systems (CMSes), including library-specific CMSes, offer some sort of toolset or themes to help you take your site mobile. WordPress, for example, offers WPtouch, a plug-in that automatically enables a mobile theme for visitors reaching you by way of their phones. Drupal, an open source CMS, offers mobile-friendly themes for your website. Google has a helpful guide for optimizing your Drupal site for mobile. Sites built with LibGuides are responsive out of the box so you don’t have to do any of the work to ensure your site displays correctly on all devices.

Google’s ever-changing search and indexing algorithms can be frustrating to deal with. But this particular change should serve as a nudge to start thinking about a mobile strategy for your library’s website. As nearly two-thirds of American adults own a smartphone (Pew Research Center), it is becoming increasingly important to reach your patrons wirelessly. By beginning the mobile optimization process, you will not only stay ahead of the Google game, but you’ll also better serve your smartphone-carrying patrons.

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Tips for More Effective Google Searches

Barbara Alvarez — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 20:33:14 +0000

As librarians, Google can be our friend. That’s funny, because a lot of people think that Google renders librarians obsolete. But I, and many other library professionals, use Google regularly. Don’t get me wrong; I love online databases as much as the next librarian. For example, when I’m teaching a class on business resources for job seekers, I introduce them to our amazing library databases that will give them the current, verified, and valuable information that they need. In fact, a common response from the participants is, “Wow, you can’t find that by doing a Google search!” It definitely makes my librarian heart sing. But then there are other times, like when a patron wants to find that sentence from that article from that magazine that was published sometime in the last decade, when Google has the potential to be a really big help.

The Huffington Post recently published 13 Google Search Tricks That Make Life a Whole Lot Easier by Carina Kolodny. The article shares examples of how you can use Google as more than just a basic search engine to find out what date is Leonardo Dicaprio’s birthday (…just me?). Let’s take converting currency, for example. As we all know, there are many websites out there to help you do this. But did you know that you could get a currency conversion right in the Google search box? I certainly didn’t.

A few of the “tricks” in the article are obvious to anyone who has Googled regularly, much less someone who has a Masters in Library and Information Science. An example of that is “put your search phrase inside quotation marks” when you want to search for an exact phrase or sentence. But many pointers were pretty cool and definitely new to me. My personal favorites were how to search within a website (all you have to do is type “site:” the web address, and the search terms), how to find a GIF (hint: you’ll need to use the advanced search tool in Google Images and click “animated”), and how to search for a news article in a range of dates, which is definitely something that public librarians will find helpful (just add two periods between the date ranges).

Check out the article for detailed instructions on these and other tips. Which was your favorite? How do you use Google on the job? Share your comments below!

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Google’s Digitization Project – Full Steam Ahead

Kael Moffat — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:35:32 +0000

What was that old Aerosmith line…“And the train kept a’ rollin’ all night long / (Yeah) the train kept a’ rollin’ all night long.” Well, the Google train keeps a rollin’, trying to keep up with its lofty mission of digitizing everything. October 4, 2012 revealed that the Association of American Publishers (AAP) had accepted a settlement, ending their seven-year suit against the “Great Aggregator in the Cloud.” Tech blogger, Ingrid Lunden claims that the settlement gives the AAP some “control” over Google in their ambitious digitizing project. Here’s my post on the Emporia State University SCALA blog, offering a different reading of the situation…with some help from Nicholas Carr. The upshot I’ll leave to The Grateful Dead: “[Publishers] you better watch your speed. / Trouble ahead, and trouble behind…”

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