At 15:25 30/06/97 +0100, John Lindsay wrote:
>>
>> For anyone interested the article is available at :
>>
>> http://www.newscientist.com/keysites/networld/lost.html
>> Colin Goodwin SLA (Social Sciences Team)
<SNIP>
The author of the NS article does seem to have a strange view of the
Library world. In this article he comments that Web spiders have problems
picking information out of the depths of Web sites. He then comments (I
quote directly so no error of interpretation can be claimed):
"The British Library's newly unveiled online catalogue is an example of
another kind of site that will defeat a search engine's spider: it contains
information about millions of books and periodicals, but it is visible only
to users who have made a specific search through the library's online query
form."
My thought is that if the search engines were that good and could identify
every book, journal etc in every WebOPAC then why do we need OPAC's in the
first place. The basic misunderstanding is that the information in OPAC's
is not in Web page form, it is only presented in that format when the user
makes a specific request.
Also there is the idea that even if what the author thinks should be
possible, were possible, would a searcher want to know that copies of the
Bible can be borrowed from several thousand libraries around the world that
they have no access to?
Overall it is an interesting, and as you can see a thought provoking,
article if a bit screwy on the Library bits. Does anyone else have any
thoughts?
Regards,
Simon
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