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The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), seeks to appoint a dynamic and forward-thinking professional as editor for its journal, Library Resources & Technical Services (LRTS). The successful candidate is a proactive professional with a broad awareness of the contemporary technical services and collections landscape and an interest in emerging issues and developments in the field. </p>
Google today rolled out a major change to their search that they are calling Google Instant. This change will begin to populate search results as soon as you begin typing, using your history combined with the information that Google has about word frequency and popularity to predict what you’re looking for. This will be rolling out across the world over the next few months, but you can test it now by visiting this page.
Here’s a neat toy from Google that I hadn’t seen before: Google Search Stories. The concept is that you can create your own story via search terms, in the manner of the Google Superbowl Commercial (and others that they’ve done in the last year or so). If you haven’t seen it, watch the commercial, and then visit the Search Stories homepage to make your own. You get six searches and a final entry to tell your story, and can choose from a series of Google specific searches to highlight the term in the proper way (Web, Image, Blog, News, Map, etc). It’s an oddly compelling way to construct a narrative.
So compelling, in fact, that I’m going to sponsor a contest using it. Use Search Stories to tell a story about libraries … funny, dramatic, horrifying, or anything in between. Just make it about libraries, and post the video or a link to it here in the comments. I’ll assemble a non-partisan set of judges, and the one chosen as the best will win a copy of my latest book, Mobile Technologies & Libraries. I’ll mail it to you personally if your video is chosen as the winner. Deadline for entry is September 30, 2010, and the winner will be chosen and announced right here on Perpetual Beta.
So get those creative juices flowing, people! Wow us with some crazy search stories!
