Web Search--AltaVista
Source: IDG News "AltaVista Serves Up Outdated Searches"
As always, caveat emptor! AltaVista's outdated index gets attention from the mainstream IT press. Not good news for the its ailing parent company, CMGI. From the article,
AltaVista's search engine is dishing up months-old results to queries. Its search index hasn't been updated since July, so changes made to indexed pages since then aren't recorded and new pages linked to indexed pages aren't reported. "A full refresh has not been done since July," says AltaVista spokesperson Kristi Kaspar. "We have crawled, but we have yet to publish the results. Pretty much everybody is working on it, it is our number one priority."...AltaVista's regional search sites have not been updated since mid-April. The company said in late August that it was merging the index behind its regional sites with the international index. The process was scheduled to be completed by late September, but the regional indexes have still not been updated. "We hit a glitch adding the international databases," says Kaspar. Comment: All of this is sad because the underlying AV technology can be a very powerful tool in the hands of a competent searcher. More to come.
Archives--Canada
Source: National Archives of Canada "Making Canada�s Past Accessible"
Read the full-text of a speech given on October 20th by Ian E. Wilson, National Archivist of Canada.
From the speech, "We are all in the information business. Our greatest skill is in knowing how to turn information into knowledge. This intellectual alchemy is a process without which our history would be incomprehensible and patternless � some accidental or arbitrary alignment of time and opportunity, people and place."
Medical Librarians--United States Happy Medical Librarians Month!
A big tip o' the VAS&ND hat to all of our medical librarian visitors. This compilation, created at the National Library of Medicine, highlights only a few of the noteworthy web-based projects being developed by medical librarians throughout the USA.
Web Search--Image Databases--Australia
Source: National Library of Australia The NLA Images 1 Database is Now Part of the Pictures Catalogue
From the site, "The National Library's Images 1 service has been replaced by an expanded Pictures Catalogue that brings together in a single database: all the online images and catalogue records that were in Images1; and the catalogue records for pictures that are yet to be digitised.
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