Gary Price is the editor of ResourceShelf.com, the News Editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, a contributer to Docuticker.com and a librarian. 

Price graciously spent a long time with me on Instant Messaging doing the interview that follows.  You can click on any of the summary points below to skip to that part of the interview, then click your browser’s “back” button to return to the top, or you can read the whole story straight through.  All off-site links will open in a new window, so you can check them out without leaving the interview.

 

 

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Libraries and Google
General Web Search Beyond Google
RSS and Email
Web Site Watcher, ResourceShelf and Research Methods
Consulting, Speaking and Inspiring New Learning
Building Organizational Support for New Web Tools
Some of Gary’s Favorite Book Search Engines

Libraries and Google

The first thing we talked about was that non-profits should look to public library electronic databases, they are very valuable and easy to access.  Price believes that libraries should be serving non-profit groups better than they currently are.  “I would argue,” he said “that meeting the research needs of the non-profits in a given community is CORE to a public libraries existence”

Librarians need to better promote the services they offer.  According to Price,

“While Google Answers gets press, these services don't. One thing that I will say over and over to both librarians and non librarians alike is that librarians are very poor at marketing what they have to offer both in terms of actual resources and skills. Libraries need to realize that even compared to 7 or 10 years ago, everyone thinks it's a click away at Google. It's not. Plus as google gets larger and there is more gaming of the Google database, some basic information retrieval skills are needed. Unfortunately, they are not taught.”

Gary gave me a tour around my own home town public library’s databases on the web, emphasizing how many services offer full text articles covering a wider breadth and greater historical depth than is available on the general web via Google.  Two libraries he highlighted were the San Francisco Public Library and Portland’s Multnomah Public Library.


He emphasized that in every state there are valuable research resources available via public libraries and their web sites.    He also pointed out that some libraries are now offering reference assistance via Instant Messaging.

General Web Search Beyond Google

We also discussed general web search engines.  “The other thing I tell people on a regular basis,” he said “is not to be so google centric when Web searching. Google is great but other general purpose web engines are also great.”  Price recommends checking out Clusty and Rollyo in particular.  We also discussed Jux2 and MSN Search.

Rollyo is a service that searches only sites you’ve selected and could be used, for example, to set up a search of all non-profit web sites in a given state.  Price says Rollyo is powerful and very easy to use.

RSS and Email

Price on RSS adoption:

“Don't underestimate the power of email. Most people have no idea about RSS and even if they have heard of it - they don't use it. Might this change in the future? Maybe. I can speak personally about this one.  

About two years ago it was suggested that I begin offering a full text feed of ResourceShelf...Nevertheless, even with the full text feed, the mailing list for Resourceshelf continues to grow. No one is more surprised than me. I figured that when I began syndicating the full text the list would lose subscribers and I could stop offering the service. Well. the opposite has happened.  

Just this week (a holiday week) I've received close to 100 new subscribers.

At a recent conference of both librarians and other professional research types VERY few knew about RSS and even fewer used it. This was very surprising to me.

On the other end of the RSS spectrum is what many journalists have told me.  They now get too many feeds.”

Price does not believe that the coming inclusion of RSS in common web services like Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s OS and Outlook will significantly increase RSS use amongst users.

Web Site Watcher, ResourceShelf and Research Methods

Gary uses WebSiteWatcher (http://www.aignes.com/) to monitor about 2500 web pages for changes that indicate new resources available.  This is how he gets much of the information he writes about, though  ResourceShelf in particular  is becoming more of a team effort as well.

“For example. I monitor the terms of services pages for all of the major engines. If they add or remove a line I can know about it within minutes, assuming i'm online.

Over the years, this is not a joke, people have asked if I sit home all day reloading web pages, hoping to catch new stuff. The answer is no. I use many tools but WebSiteWatcher is the most important.

Non-profits should be using Web Site Watcher , WatchthatPage, etc. to monitor every possible funding source they might want to tap now or in the future. Know what is going on. Monitor personnel pages, funding announcements, etc. Most of these sites don't have feeds.”

Gary’s work at Docuticker.com may be of particular interest to non-profit groups.  In addition to finding helpful new information there, he welcomes submissions.


Consulting, Speaking and Inspiring New Learning

His consulting and speaking are largely about exposing people to new search tools and inspiring them to use services they hadn’t known about before.  

“This year saw me travel across the country (much more international travel in 2004) speaking to both librarians and non-librarians (council on foundations for example) about web search, cool tools, improving their skills, etc.

In many cases my speeches are motivational more than anything else.  I inspire people to try stuff. One thing both librarians and non-librarians frequently tell me is that for the past five years they have only thought of and used Google. My presentation opened their eyes to other stuff.  

That said,  I also try to spend time showing how to better use Google.

Most people type in 2.8 words and click search. 99 percent of the searches that go through ANY large web engine take NO advantage of any advanced search techniques.

A little training can go a long way with both Google and other engines.

In other words, people can't use what they don't know about. If someone leaves a presentation knowing about one or two new things of the many that I might talk about then I think I've done a good job.  

Pardon the cliche, but if this is the info age shouldn't info retrieval skills and critical info skills be a major part of the educational landscape? At this point, they aren't.”

We also talked about the growing importance of vertical search.

“I think the future will bring about user controlled federated search technology that will allow a user to pick and choose a set of focused databases at search time and bring back answers, couple this with personalization that will help users choose tools.”

Price recommended checking out Vivisimo and MuseGlobal.com's Museseek for general vertical search.  He also pointed out that the search technology at Ask.com may be one of the most under appreciated resources on the web.

Building Organizational Support for New Web Tools

I asked Price if he had any thoughts about how an early adopter in an organization could build support for organizational use of new web tools and online databases.

“One word: Time!!!  Use of technology can, if done properly, save the user and the organization time, effort and aggravation.

So, organizations need people to first find, then share, and then train.  Leadership loves stuff that will save their staff time.  It also makes a place for the early adopter.

Building and buying and using technology is not a field of dreams. Getting the technology doesn't mean people will come and use it, and use it to it's full potential.

I will also add that non-profits and other organizations (including libraries for that matter) need to leverage the quality FREELY accessible content and technology. Lots of good stuff but again, people can't use what they don't know about.

The problem we have is that the typical CEO or even middle manager has no time for much of this. That's why showing how these tools can SAVE time talks at their level.

But again, getting it doesn’t mean it will be used, and used correctly.  That’s where we [consultants and trainers] come in.”

Some of Gary’s Favorite Book Search Engines

Book search engines that Price said were amongst the best and important to explore included:

http://www.redlightgreen.com
a bibliographic database with more than 120 million entries.

Good means of limiting your search, exports your citations in any of 5 formats, can be set to search your local library as well, is connected with 5 online book sales sites.

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/

over 25,000 full text public domain books in one database, browse or search.  RSS feed of all new books added.


http://shop.ebrary.com

Full text search of 20,000 books for free, pay to print individual pages.  $5 minimum on setting up an account to print.  Whereas Google Booksearch and Amazon Search Inside the Book limit how much of a book you can read, this service does not.

http://www.safaritechbooks.com/

FUll text, fielded searching of thousands of tech books from O'reilly, Sams, McGraw Hill and others. It's not too expensive, but again, many libraries offer it free.
they also offer a free feed generator that notifies you of new books

http://www.lii.org

Librarnains' Internet Index

http://infomine.ucr.edu

InfoMine from the Univ of California

More of an academic library

http://rdn.ac.uk

You'll see that this site offers one search access to a variety of directories. Each worthy of direct search.

http://www.eevl.ac.uk/

This is one of the individual subject sites. Amazing. Name is pronounced "Evil"

http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/

This site offers full tutorials for web trainers.

I have used them to get ideas about key sites and concepts to talk about, all of the content is free

http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/tutorial/hair

yes, even hair