Maybe this has already been explored, but don't you think Amazon's
search tools are imprecise so that customers come across a bunch of
other stuff they might want to buy? Their goal is to sell as much stuff
as possible. If customers take the long way to get to what they think
they want, the for most customers they are going to buy more than they
had initially intended.
I personally use Amazon when I want to get quick access to book reviews.
I really like the fact they have customer comments. I like non
professional comments a lot more than 'authoritative' reviews that a
library product like Syndetics can provide.
Jon Goodell
Technology Services & Reference Librarian
Ottenheimer Library - Pulaski Technical College
North Little Rock, AR
501-812-2718
jgoodell_at_pulaskitech.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Micaela Marcus-Boyer
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 5:27 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: We're going about this all wrong
Hmmm,
It has been some time since I used Amazon's advanced search
features...but I do know that it can be infuriating to try and limit a
search once I've done a search (not to mention a seeming lack of
"authority control" when I search for non-book products and start
browsing by brand).
I am the only librarian at my location, I have a co-worker who claims he
is the King of "quick and dirty" and I am the Queen of "do it right".
We just don't always see eye to eye on the best way to go about finding
something but we often learn from each other. One day, I took his
information need and came back with a list of books (from area
libraries) that would fit that need. He was blown away, as he had been
focusing his search on the visible web. But I still can't get him to
search a library catalog his information need (sometimes I have luck
with databases, since they are more likely to fill his "need it now"
mindset).
Do users use Amazon first because they feel it is a better tool or
because it is the tool that is more heavily marketed? How much do they
care about sorting through the excessive hits they sometimes get?
How many are happy with the "quick and dirty" and the library tools
just aren't seen as quick enough?
Micaela
On 6/12/06, Laura Akerman <liblna_at_emory.edu> wrote:
> I think users of Amazon and Google put up with trawling through a lot
> of unhelpful results because they use those services for other reasons
> (comprehensiveness, "ranking", free content), and that's the best
"search"
> those services can provide right now - but that will change.
Received on Tue Jun 13 2006 - 08:54:02 EDT