user's context

There is more to finding the "right" thing in an index (read, library
catalog) than correlating search terms, concepts, and information
resources. I believe it also requires a knowledge of the user's context.

A Google blog posting alludes to this idea [1]:

   The most famous part of our ranking algorithm is PageRank, an
   algorithm developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who founded
   Google. PageRank is still in use today, but it is now a part of a
   much larger system. Other parts include language models (the
   ability to handle phrases, synonyms, diacritics, spelling
   mistakes, and so on), query models (it's not just the language,
   it's how people use it today), time models (some queries are best
   answered with a 30-minutes old page, and some are better answered
   with a page that stood the test of time), and personalized models
   (not all people want the same thing).

Ironically, I think the idea of putting a user's needs/desires into
context with search is an extraordinary opportunity for librarians
and libraries because libraries are always a part of a larger
community. Municipalities. Schools. Churches. Governments. Colleges.
Universities. Companies. Hospitals. Businesses. Etc.

In order to do their job well, librarians are required to know about
their users. Who are they? What are their characteristics? What are
they working on? By combining the answers to these questions with the
queries they enter into our search interfaces we ought to be able to
produce more relevant search results because we know more about the
users than outside institutions.

Put another way, better metadata and simpler user interfaces will
only go so far. I believe some of our efforts ought to be spent
making our search engines "smarter".

[1] Google blog - http://tinyurl.com/5su7yh

--
Eric Lease Morgan
University of Notre Dame