On Mon, 12 Jun 2006, Emily Lynema wrote:
> What does Amazon do well? It provides relevance ranking for un-fielded
> keyword searching.
Amazon certainly tries to do this but I wouldn't say it does it well. At
least not in my experience. I've done a lot of Amazon searching in the
last month. If I'm looking for a specific book by a specific author and I
put all the relevant keywords in the search box, it usually--but not
always--shows up first or pretty high in the list. Sometimes I have to
page through several screens before I get to it, though. This is
especially true if I forget to use quotes.
If, on the other hand, I'm looking for anything from a particular author
(my more usual search since I'm looking for new stuff to read) I get a
mess. Yes, I'm sure all the things in the system by that author are
*somewhere* in the numerous pages, but they're certainly not in a
logical order. They're interspersed among other things that must
have been pulled up for some reason, although I can't always tell
why. Again, this is more true if I forget to use quotes, but it's
generally a mess even if I remember. The sort options are also less than
helpful.
I'm one of the millions who uses Amazon.com and Google and I keep going
back. Some would say that means I'm one of the 80% who's happy with the
interfaces. I'm most definitely not. So why do I keep going back?
Google's no better or worse than any other large search engine I've tried
and they seem to index more of the things I'm interested in. I haven't
found a large search engine that does a better job. Doesn't mean Goggle
does well, only that there's no real competition. End of story.
Amazon is a "big name" and the one I remember when it comes time to look
for books to buy (yes, I'm a buyer not a borrower, librarian though I
am). They tend to have something I want more often than bookstore sites
because I generally want out-of-print books by dead and gone mystery or
other genre fiction authors. So I go to them for the content and live with
the interface because I have to.
Does that mean libraries should "go google" or "go amazon?" I think not.
The majority of people who use these sites do so because the companies
have marketed themselves well and the names are remembered--not because of
the fantastically wonderful interface and search results.
Mary
Mary Grenci
University of Oregon Libraries
mgrenci_at_uoregon.edu
Received on Tue Jun 13 2006 - 13:02:32 EDT