Monday, November 27, 2006

Do-it-yourself metasearch

The new Google co-op platform is interesting. Among other things, it allows one to create a custom search by entering a list of sites upon which a query will be executed. I have previously done this with excel spreadsheets (e.g. entering a list of sites, a cell to hold a search term, and a little bit of macro magic) but Google coop makes it easy. One search came back to mind immediately -- I put all the home pages from LIS schools as listed on the ALA web site into the source file. Enter a search term (e.g. "tuition") and all the LIS school pages are searched. These searches can be shared or embedded in web pages. You can try my LISSchoolSearch and let me know what you think.

If I have some time, I'd like to put together a simple-minded search using the pathfinders and subject guide pages of top libraries as the restricted set of resources. If you get to it before I do, let me know.

No comments: