Searching for the good stuff
Posted by Jacque on December 17th, 2007
Search engines failing to find government information
An OMB Watch report [PDF] (found via LISNews) points out “a critical gap in online access to vital government information.” Researchers examined Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live, Ask, and the search function provided by USA.gov and learned that many of searches miss critical information simply because of the manner in which the government agency has published the information.
They give some examples and the following recommendations to encourage greater accessibility of government information:
- Congress should pass the E-Government reauthorization act, which would require the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to create best practices to encourage
searchability of federal Web sites. - OMB should officially recognize the importance of commercial search engines to Internet
users and work with the CIO Council to adopt policies to help users find information. - Agencies should adopt an information policy that makes public accessibility of online
content and resources a priority. - Agencies should create Sitemaps of content on their sites, with special attention given to
materials stored in databases and accessible only through drop-down menus. For example,
many agencies have FAQ databases that are not accessible to search crawlers but contain
very succinct and useful answers to common questions. - Agencies should review their use of robots.txt files in order to ensure they are used in the
least restrictive way possible. Every effort should be made to include, rather than exclude,
materials from the website, whether materials were excluded purposefully or accidentally
in the past.
Google Book Search Library Project expands to 28 with Columbia University
Columbia University has become the 28th library to join with Google Book Search to digitize works from its collections and make them searchable and discoverable online. Public-domain works will be available to view and download for anyone with an internet connection.
Gabriel Stricker, now at Google and formerly a grad student at Columbia, calls their collections of books on architecture, political science, international studies, and Asian languages amazing.
