[EAS] Living with Google

[pjk]

Subject:   Living with Google

As readers of EAS-INFO know from previous mailings, e.g.
<http://jove.eng.yale.edu/pipermail/eas-info/2001/000394.html>,
(where the brightplanet.com article has moved to
<http://www.brightplanet.com/technology/deepweb.asp>), databased
resources with Web access are inaccessible to Google.

Both items below are of the "if you can't fight 'em, join 'em" kind,
work to make free scholarly resources more accessible to Google, and
ways to better understand Google and how to make yourself more
prominent there.

So where in the "old days" we would compare ourselves to the author
biographies at the end of journal publications, now we can also do
Google searches on our name to see "how we are doing."

All best in the brave new world,  --PJK

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(from CIT INFOBITS -- June 2004)

THE AGE OF GOOGLE

Love it or hate it, we can't dismiss the influence Google and other
commercial search services have had on information searching.
Unfortunately, a major problem when relying on these services for
scholarly research is the fact that many free scholarly resources
are not included in their search results. For example, many
universities' online book collections are never indexed by Google
because its search engine can't access these databases. According to
a recent article, "Libraries Aim to Widen Google's Eyes" (by Jeffrey
R. Young, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, vol. 50, issue 37, May
21, 2004, p. A1), this situation may soon change. Increased
competition for market share among search engine providers is
spurring increased competition for quality content, and scholars and
researchers will be winners in this race to put quality over
quantity. The article is available online at
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i37/37a00101.htm (a Chronicle
subscription is required for online access).

The Chronicle of Higher Education [ISSN 0009-5982] is published
weekly by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inc., 1255 Twenty-third
Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037 USA; tel: 202-466-1000; fax:
202-452-1033; Web: http://chronicle.com/.

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To maintain its position in the field of Web search engines, the
algorithm that Google uses to generate search results is a guarded
secret. In "The Nature of Meaning in the Age of Google" (INFORMATION
RESEARCH, vol. 9, no. 3, April, 2004), Terrence A. Brooks provides
an overview of how Google works, an explanation of why traditional
methods of indexing information can be ineffective in the "lawless
meaning space of the open Web," and strategies for authors who want
to maximize the visibility of their documents. The paper is
available online at http://informationr.net/ir/9-3/paper180.html.

Information Research [ISSN 1368-1613] is a freely available,
international, scholarly journal, dedicated to making accessible the
results of research across a wide range of information-related
disciplines. It is privately published by Professor T.D. Wilson,
Professor Emeritus of the University of Sheffield, with in-kind
support from the University and its Department of Information
Studies. For more information, contact: Tom Wilson, Department of
Information Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK;
tel: +44 (0)114-222-2642; fax: +44 (0)114-278-0300; email:
t.d.wilson at shef.ac.uk; Web: http://informationr.net/ir/.