Ask.com slashes jobs and changes focus

from LibrarianInBlack by Sarah Houghton-Jan

Ask.com has cut 40 jobs, including the beloved and talented Gary Price, in its reorganization and attempt to develop a new "strategy." You can read more in Gary's post on ResourceShelf, the Wall Street Journal article, the Reuters story, or a most interesting reaction from Search Engine Roundtable to new "strategy" of focusing their efforts on women over 30 and health and entertainment info. Can we say "tiny slice o' the market"? The sense in the search world in general is that this new direction (job cuts aside) is not a good one.

I am personally very disappointed, not only because I consider Gary a close friend and colleague, but because I rely on Ask.com for all of my searching. I teach it in my classes. I promote it on my blog when awesome features are introduced. The results are better, better-presented, and better-organized from a research standpoint - which is what library staff are usually using a search engine for. If it changes from what it is, and doesn't offer me what I need as an educational searcher, then I'll be in search of another engine to meet my needs. Let's wait and see what happens.

Comment

Please, Sarah, forgive me re-producing the whole of your post from earlier this month. In mitigation I offer the fact that it was the best one on this story which appeared in a lot of different places, including the ones you have provided links for above. It may not be a disaster but it sure feels like one to a large number of librarians and information managers!

I am personally not with Sarah on relying on Ask.com for all of my searching but that is because I am usually looking for something that I know exists e.g. the title of an article. When I'm researching something new then it's Ask.com, Yahoo! Answers or Exalead -- possibly all three and maybe others until I'm sure that I've got an answer to the question or, the more difficult issue, that an answer does not exist.

Hiatus -- or short break

I really was trying to keep up with one post a day -- not for any specific reason like a challenge but simply that one-a-day (like eat your five-a-day) seemed about right.
Here's Monday's saying that I'm going off tomorrow on a short break (to France), back Thursday for a conference on Internet marketing and then it's Easter break. I'll be back next week!
Come back and see me then, PLEASE.

TTWAs -- I'm an idiot

You may remember that I told you about National Statistics providing information about the new Travel to Work Areas and then said "sorry, the link doesn't work".

My fault -- I typed the link and, believe it or not, I can't spell geography.

The correct link is:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/geography/ttwa.asp

A big thank you to Gareth Bowman at NS who pointed out, very gently, that the link works fine as long as you don't type it wrong!

How to get and keep a job

from Fool.co.uk Headlines

People have unnecessary fear about whether they'll get a job, and whether they'll be fired before they can prove themselves! Read why you worry needlessly.

Written for individuals but ... you may like to refer clients to this as it contains some common-sense advice. "Common"? "Sense"? How often is good advice common?

Lisbon Strategy AND Lisbon Treaty

I'm confused.


OK, no comments from the back row -- I know that it's easy to confuse me. This is particularly noticeable when I'm trying to sort out information about, or emanating from, the European Commission (and all the other European political / non-department bodies).


Today it's the turn of Lisbon to confuse me.


Not the place itself, of course -- it's the habit that political bodies have of naming treaties and agreements by the name of the place in which the treaty or agreement was reached.


There's only one Treaty of Versailles (see Wikipedia entry here) but there's two Lisbons -- one strategy, one treaty.

I have commented on (mainly in ADSET's printed publication Members' Update), written about, studied and otherwise been involved with the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs. If I'm writing "Lisbon" in my tags/index terms etc then it's going to be this Lisbon that I mean (usually).


For the general public however Lisbon is more likely to mean a treaty -- about which there has been a great deal of controversy. Is it, or isn't it, a constitution for Europe under another name?

I was, therefore, grateful to find an entry on intute: Social Sciences Law gateway which tells us where to find a Guide to the Treaty of Lisbon. It (PDF 28pp) is available from the Law Society's website.

The guide has chapters providing background information on the treaty, background to EU policies and procedures, a table setting out how the Treaty would change various aspects of legal practice including dispute resolution, family law and criminal law. There are sections on the UK perspective on the Treaty and a look at how the treaty affects the rights of EU citizens. Also included is a glossary of EU terms and a link to full text of the treaty.

And while I'm sending you to a PDF -- you are now using Foxit Reader, aren't you?
No commercial connextion here -- just an extremely satisfied customer.

Use of the Universal Decimal Classification: A world-wide survey

an article by Aida Slavic in Journal of Documentation (Volume 64 Issue 2 (2008))

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a general overview with up-to-date information on the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) use worldwide.
Design/methodology/approach – The research combined e-mail interviews with LIS professionals in 208 countries, literature research and information obtained from UDC distributors/publishers (AENOR, BSI, UDC Consortium). The following categorisation of UDC use was offered:
A – dominant system;
B – used in some kind of libraries only; or
C – rarely used.
Findings – The paper finds that, of the 208 countries contacted and researched through the literature in 2004-2006, the UDC was found to be used in 124 (60 per cent) of these. In 34 (28 per cent) of the countries researched (in Europe, Asia and Africa), UDC is the main classification system used across national information networks. In 45 (36 per cent) of the countries it is used in certain kinds of libraries. In the remaining 45 (36 per cent) of the countries it is used rarely, in only a few libraries or information centres.
Research limitations/implications – It was beyond the scope of this research to provide any information regarding the actual number of institutions using UDC in a given country or to give an estimate of the size and number of document collections organised by it. Although a decline in UDC use since the 1980s was reported from a number of countries, it was not possible to measure this accurately.
Practical implications – The interest shown for using UDC in the organisation of digital collections, information exchange and cross domain and cross collection resource discovery depends on accurate knowledge of its actual usage worldwide. This gives a measure of its global importance and verifies its credentials as an indexing standard. This research, which attempted wider and more systematic coverage than previous surveys, should help clarify the status of UDC and its potential use in the networked environment.
Originality/value – The paper provides up-to-date information on the presence of the UDC system across countries and languages.

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

California Dropout Research Project

from Librarians' Internet Index


"The purpose of this project is to synthesize existing research and undertake new research to inform policymakers and the larger public about the nature of -- and potential solutions to -- the [high school] dropout problem in California."


Features statistical briefs and research reports on topics such as which California school districts have the most dropouts, and alternative pathways to high school graduation. An affiliated project of the University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute.


Please, please go and read this for yourself. Why the project? makes clear that California thinks it has "an educational crisis". The UK is obviously not the only place on earth that is suffering from the effects of young people leaving the compulsory education system without having been educated.