Comments on: Applied Googling http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2007/09/14/applied-googling/ Culture, Politics, Academia and Other Shiny Objects Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:26:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: daddy democrat http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2007/09/14/applied-googling/comment-page-1/#comment-4226 daddy democrat Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:09:31 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=429#comment-4226 Well, for major press citations, there's always still L/N. I dunno. I'm perfectly predisposed to believe that there could be serious problems with Coca Cola's corporate behavior in India and elsewhere. But I also think that Swarthmore qua Swarthmore should set a high standard for truth seeking prior to making accusations and taking action. Well, for major press citations, there’s always still L/N.

I dunno. I’m perfectly predisposed to believe that there could be serious problems with Coca Cola’s corporate behavior in India and elsewhere. But I also think that Swarthmore qua Swarthmore should set a high standard for truth seeking prior to making accusations and taking action.

]]> By: jpool http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2007/09/14/applied-googling/comment-page-1/#comment-4224 jpool Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:08:31 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=429#comment-4224 Sure, but I meant more within webland. Google has come to dominate websearching because it is incredibly effective at getting you to useful pages wit a minimum of dead links. But it's still one particular approach to making sense of the web, and certain kinds of pages, such as individually run pages that are not multiply linked to, tend to fall to the bottom of its searches. Alternately, less common combinations of terms tend to get burried under the more popular but less direct combinations of them (for example, I was trying to look up some info on a friend but all of the results that came up for her first and last names were instead pages involving two separate celebrities who had been romantically linked). The webverse and the world of books and journals are a bit combined now, since JSTOR results come up in searches. Sometimes, this is really useful, even if I have to open up a new window to get at the info through my university. Other times this is really frustrating as, a) if I wanted to do a JSTOR search I'd do a JSTOR search, and b) if, say, I'm trying to figure out if a praticular person is still in academia (as I was earlier today), it doesn't help so much to keep encoutering their articles from the 1970s. Sure, but I meant more within webland. Google has come to dominate websearching because it is incredibly effective at getting you to useful pages wit a minimum of dead links. But it’s still one particular approach to making sense of the web, and certain kinds of pages, such as individually run pages that are not multiply linked to, tend to fall to the bottom of its searches. Alternately, less common combinations of terms tend to get burried under the more popular but less direct combinations of them (for example, I was trying to look up some info on a friend but all of the results that came up for her first and last names were instead pages involving two separate celebrities who had been romantically linked).

The webverse and the world of books and journals are a bit combined now, since JSTOR results come up in searches. Sometimes, this is really useful, even if I have to open up a new window to get at the info through my university. Other times this is really frustrating as, a) if I wanted to do a JSTOR search I’d do a JSTOR search, and b) if, say, I’m trying to figure out if a praticular person is still in academia (as I was earlier today), it doesn’t help so much to keep encoutering their articles from the 1970s.

]]> By: Timothy Burke http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2007/09/14/applied-googling/comment-page-1/#comment-4223 Timothy Burke Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:31:57 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=429#comment-4223 Well, for example, if I want to know more about unions, death squads and multinationals in Colombia, one thing to do is to step from the Google space into the space of library catalogs. The problem there is that there is often an exponential step up in terms of the labor-to-results relationship, and so your motivation for knowing has to increase accordingly. If all books and articles were online and searchable, it wouldn't be quite so bad, but at this point, making that move means I'd likely have to cross the lawn to the library and sit down to read some. Well, for example, if I want to know more about unions, death squads and multinationals in Colombia, one thing to do is to step from the Google space into the space of library catalogs. The problem there is that there is often an exponential step up in terms of the labor-to-results relationship, and so your motivation for knowing has to increase accordingly. If all books and articles were online and searchable, it wouldn’t be quite so bad, but at this point, making that move means I’d likely have to cross the lawn to the library and sit down to read some.

]]> By: jpool http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2007/09/14/applied-googling/comment-page-1/#comment-4222 jpool Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:03:12 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=429#comment-4222 Ivan Karp has offered this as a general principle for (ethnographic) research -- that once you've established a common pattern of answers, you need to move on to a different question or to asking the question in a different way. Obviously this applies more to certain kinds of research more than others. My mind goes first to the classic example of Jan Vansina's competing oral tradition, which he wouldn't have found if he hadn't been such a completist. Remember when there were different search engines that would offer you different kinds of results? Obviously web research can still only get you so far in any area, but I wish sometimes that there were other ways of engaging with it that might allow you to step outside of the googlocracy. Any suggestions? Ivan Karp has offered this as a general principle for (ethnographic) research — that once you’ve established a common pattern of answers, you need to move on to a different question or to asking the question in a different way. Obviously this applies more to certain kinds of research more than others. My mind goes first to the classic example of Jan Vansina’s competing oral tradition, which he wouldn’t have found if he hadn’t been such a completist.
Remember when there were different search engines that would offer you different kinds of results? Obviously web research can still only get you so far in any area, but I wish sometimes that there were other ways of engaging with it that might allow you to step outside of the googlocracy. Any suggestions?

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