Well said, Leonard.
Full disclosure - I now work for Endeca, who as I'm sure many of you will
know are a leading provider of tools for faceted navigation and information
discovery.
In many cases we come up against the notion/expectation that people want
their search system 'to work like Google'. But this completely misses the
point, as (a) the strategies that Google uses on the web generally don't
work in the enterprise, and (b) search isn't the answer anyway. We prefer
the term 'discovery', with all the richness, exploration and serendipity
that that implies. In fact, the dialogue and interactions you describe below
sum up our vision very nicely.
This sounds like a great subject for a panel at this year's Search Solutions
(Oct 1st at BCS HQ) - perhaps I'll twist your arm offline Leonard to get you
on board :) If anyone else shares the same interest, do get in touch.
Cheers,
Tony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ir represents the interests and activities of the BCS IRSG and
> related groups. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Leonard Will
> Sent: 11 March 2009 15:48
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Search - the Science Making Tomorrow's World
>
> >
> >Search - the Science Making Tomorrow's World (Science Week Event!)
> Date:
> >Monday 9th March 2009
> >Venue: London Offices, Southampton Street
> >
> >This is a joint Meeting with the Information Retrieval Specialist
> Group.
> >
> >After five millennia, are traditional 'libraries' heading for the dusty
> >storeroom as loose agglomerations of on-line knowledge are searched by
> >increasingly sophisticated methods? As search takes on the editorial
> role,
> >will it come to be the author?
> . . .
> >We then start to look to the future, asking:
> >
> >Just how different might the world be when the Google generation are
> >running it?
>
> I attended this interesting meeting, but was rather disappointed with
> the speakers' views of the future.
>
> Is it really the case that simple Google-type searches are all we can
> look forward to in the future? Is it really true that we cannot expect
> users to use more advanced search techniques than putting a word or two
> into a box and then being satisfied with the first few items retrieved?
>
> If machines are to replace libraries as depositories of information,
> might not the machines also replace the librarians as guides, advisors
> and unobtrusive teachers in finding and selecting the most appropriate
> information from these stores?
>
> Will machines not in future be able to take the role of a librarian in
> conducting a "reference interview", with questions and suggestions such
> as:
>
> * That's a very broad topic - do you want just general or
> introductory works?
>
> * We have the following more specific topics - would one of them be
> more appropriate?
>
> * This is a structured map of the subject field, which may help you
> to refine your search by showing the relationship between concepts
> and letting you choose the most appropriate ones.
>
> * If you are interested in that, you might also be interested in
> this.
>
> * There is very little available on that specific topic, but you
> might find some relevant material if you search for this more
> general topic.
>
> * This is a selection of resources that appear to match your request.
> If you let me know which are of most interest, I'll try to find
> more like them.
>
> * Your query is for a combination of two or more topics. Can I help
> you to formulate a query that will find them with the relationship
> you need?
>
> * That term is ambiguous. It could mean ... or ... . Which do you
> want?
>
> There seems to be a great neglect in the development of interactive user
> interfaces of this kind. Is this not the sort of thing that the semantic
> web is promising us? It will need some underlying understanding of the
> relationships between subjects, either as a traditional classification
> scheme or thesaurus or as some more complex from of ontology, whether it
> is created intellectually by humans or mechanically by clever computers.
>
> The terms "taxonomy" and "faceted classification" seem to occur with
> increasing frequency in the literature (often, regrettably, with
> imprecise meanings which lead to misunderstanding and confusion). Does
> this not indicate that words alone are not proving sufficient and that
> the traditional approach to "knowledge organisation" still has a big
> role to play in the future of "search" in tomorrow's world?
>
> Leonard Will
> --
> Willpower Information (Partners: Dr Leonard D Will, Sheena E Will)
> Information Management Consultants Tel: +44 (0)20 8372 0092
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