> > <SNIP>
> > The author of the NS article does seem to have a strange view of
the> > Library world.
It seems to me that he is reporting that the technical directors of
the commercial search engines are moving away from the "brute force"
approach of trying to index all the information on the web, and moving
towards using metadata (brief description of the contents of a page)-
electronic catalogue records by any other name- and predicting an
"increase in use of specialist search engines and indexes providing
in-depth coverage of the web by language or subject"- in other words,
subject gateways like EEVL, OMNI, SOSIG, and ELDIS- with their added
value of resource description and evaluation, and which include links
to OPACs.
So, we have had the right approach all along, surprise, surprise.
Instead of moaning on about our image, we should be going out there
and communicating this, and capitalising on it in ways hinted at at
the recent global digital library and metadata conferences- we need to
bring our subject gateways together into a visible product,
capitalise on our academic authority, and compete with the search
engines. Over to you: UKOLN, JISC, CNI, BLRIC, CAUSE, CAUL!
Barbara Merchant
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Barbara Merchant [log in to unmask]
Librarian - Science Policy Research Unit
Mantell Building, University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9RF
Phone: 01273 678066 Fax: 01273 685865
Web: http://www.susx.ac.uk/spru/
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