Librarians wanted

I had the chance to participate in a search engine test project a little while back - it was interesting. I just got an email saying they are looking for a few good librarians to help with their next test project:

And for our Librarian Insiders, we need more of you! Please feel free to invite any and all of your librarian friends and colleagues; send them here http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/ff28g2dd6e, so we can learn a bit more about them and get them set up. Once they follow this link, they will be asked to enter their first and last names. Please be sure to tell them to add your initials in brackets following their last name e.g., Jones [AEJ], so we know that you referred them.

Remember to put my intials AEJ if you sign up via this post -- and I look forward to seeing you all in the test!

Savvy Little Searchers

Search Engine Watch has a good article, entitled Savvy Little Searchers, concerning search engines and kids. Be sure to look it over!

Summary:

Overall Rankings

The search engine sites are subjectively ranked on a 1-5 star scale, with 5 stars being the best. The categories ranked include: (1) visual appeal to a child; (2) relevance to a child, based on our chosen searches; (3) commercial vs. educational, with the educational slant creating a higher score; and (4) ease of navigation for 7-10 year olds.

	Visual Appeal to a Child	Relevance to a Child	Commercial vs. Educational	Ease of Navigation
AOL for Kids	****	***	*	**
Cybersleuth Kids	**	*	***	*
Fact Monster	*****	*****	*****	*****
Kids Click	**	**	*****	**
Lycos for Kids	*	****	*	*
Quintura Kids	*****	*****	*****	*****
Yahoo Kids	*****	*****	*	****
ZOO	**	****	***	*****
About.com	*	***	***	*
Ask.com	*****	*****	*	****
Google	***	*****	*	***
MSN	***	****	*	***
Yahoo	***	*****	*	*

Let's all Freebase!

Found this via TechCrunch. Worth reading for the headline alone.

TechCruch | This is cool, unless it achieves consciousness and kills us all

Freebase launches today, a new startup that intends to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. If that last bit sounds familiar, it’s because it’s actually Google’s mission, but Freebase seems intent on doing it, too.

Like Google Base, Freebase is a massive database. The purpose of the database is to centralize as much data as possible, and allow participants to freely add and access data - developers can extract information from Freebase via a set of APIs and add it to their web applications. It also builds relationships between highly structured pieces of data, something that can’t easily be done with distributed data controlled by different entities.