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May 23, 2007
Two search engines to be aware of
A while back, Mary Ellen Bates mentioned two search engines that I hadn't heard of. I test-drove each, and recommend them both for different reasons.
- Quintura: The results clustering and data visualization map make this worth checking out. Even cooler (and Mary Ellen Bates noted this as well), the ability to click on any term in your results cloud (viewing related terms), and automatically get that term appended to your search, for a batch of new results. Okay, it's hard to explain--just go try it.
- Kosmix: Results are clustered by pre-defined categories like travel, politics, and more. The way the site clusters is highly impressive; the related terms and refining options are spot-on. You also get webpages, images, journals, organizations, blogs, and more--all displayed vertically (ha ha Google, they beat you to it). Plus, they split the results into Basic and Advanced Reading. That appeal to any youth services librarians? :)
These two sites just remind us all that the world does not consist of the holy trinity of MSN-Yahoo-Google. There are other search engines out there, some with really great features and content. And as librarians (yes, I'm gonna say it again) we need to be aware of the tools that are available to us.
May 23, 2007 | Permalink
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I really like how Quintura allows searches to be refined - that is a very nice feature.
I didn't have your experience with Kosmix though, at least not the first time. In order to get results complete with related terms, images, etc you need to choose a category other than the default “all of Kosmix” when you search. I didn’t do this the first time, and just got one page of results surrounded by ads (way more ads than search results, I might add). The problem with restricting to a category is that there aren’t many to choose from. I searched the word “bees” because I wanted to read about the disappearance of honeybees, but I had to choose from these categories: Health, Autos, Travel, Finance, Politics, and Video Games. They need to refine their interface a little so that you do a more general search and still see the related terms and other features. Also, it only divides between Basic and Advanced Reading in the Health category. They use different divisions for the other categories, some of which are quite useful like a “screen shots” division in the Video Games category, and “car reviews” division in Autos.
Posted by: Linda | June 6, 2007
