[GOAL] Re: New Year's challenge for repository developers and managers: awesome cross-search

[Steve Hitchcock]

The search graphic linked by Heather is interesting, as is the service developed by Digital Commons. Unlike Stevan, I believe repository content building and mandates will do better if developed in parallel with useful repository services, and we should not forget that was the objective of OAI that inspired the first generation of repositories and services.

However, this search service is novel rather than 'awesome'. Adopting Stevan's search term gives the following top four results:

Causal Constructs And Conceptual Confusions, Linda J. Hayes, Mark A. Adams, Mark R. Dixon Dec 2012

"The Governance Of Science In An Age Of Knowledge Management", Steve Fuller Dec 2012

"The Roquade Project: Towards New Models In Scientific Communication", Bas Savenije Dec 2012

Consortia Licensing, Information As Infrastructure, Andy Crowther Dec 2012

Some of these might look like new papers that students of this field will want to catch up with, but they are from 1998, 2001, 2001 and 1998, respectively.

Looking at the classification in the left-hand column, this could be useful if it is more reliable than the by-year example above - and surely we can do dates better than by year? There are some categories - 'Lee C. Van Orsdel', 'Series', 'Selected Works' - that look specific to Digital Commons.

In other words, from a content pov this is interesting and it highlights a wide range of repository content; from a search perspective it lacks focus and precision. In this respect it is like most other native repository search.

We can't naysay Google/Scholar, obviously, and that was the reason OAI services fell into decline, but repository services could benefit from a more focussed approach than Google provides currently, time-based search across selected repositories, for example, perhaps even some of the features highlighted by Digital Commons. Quality will be the ultimate determinant of usage of these services.

In a post-Finch OA world it might look like policy is the front line, but you can be sure the OA providers encouraged by Finch will be putting as much into service development as content development. That is now the real front line for repository services, not Google.

Steve

On 3 Jan 2013, at 01:09, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> CHEER-LEADING, CHALLENGES AND REALITY
> 
> What is missing and needed is not "awesome repositories cross-search tools." 
> 
> What is missing and needed is OA repository deposits, and OA deposit mandates. 
> 
> The repositories are mostly empty. 
> 
> And Google Scholar finds what OA content there is -- wherever it is on the web -- incomparably better than "awesome repositories cross-search tools."
> 
> Here is just a sample vanity search on a relatively uncommon name (try your own):
> 
> Awesome repositories cross-search tool: Harnad 140 hits
> Google Scholar: Harnad 15,900 hits (author:Harnad: 1,010 hits)
> 
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On 2 Jan 2013, at 23:07, Heather Morrison wrote:

> The Digital Commons Network has created an awesome repositories cross-search tool - with a signficant limitation, that this is limited to the Digital Commons platform.
> 
> My challenge for repository developers and managers: are you developing your platforms and repositories to facilitate development of search services like this that would work across platforms? If not, why not?
> 
> Here is the link to the Digital Commons tool (thanks to Isaac Gilman):
> http://network.bepress.com/
> 
> best,
> 
> Heather G. Morrison
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com
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