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Search tool update--SpaceTime & Clusty
February 5, 2008

I made a couple of search discoveries today.  

SpaceTime is a kind of stackable metasearch tool.  That is, it also you to search across multiple seach tools and view your results as a visual 3D stack.  This looks like it's going to be especially helpful with image and video searches. In a regular keyword search, SpaceTime creates buttons for your keywords making it easier to search within your search.  I suspect my students are going to love this one.  It's elegant! 
Note:  The PC demo looks great, but unfortunately, the Mac version is not yet ready for prime time.

The SpaceTime folks explain:

The days of mining through pages and pages of tiny thumb-nails in an effort to find the item you are looking for are over. Because SpaceTime™ has unlimited space, you can display hundreds of items at once to find exactly what you are looking for.

Clusty, the clustering search tool that organizes results into categories and subcatergories, recently introduced Clustering 2.0.   I love this tool because it introduces new vocabulary, concepts, and contexts into student searching.  It brings up results that would be buried in the many pages of Google's vertical lists.  Clustering 2.0 expands the cluster party by allowing searchers to remix, to view those clusters that didn't make the first page of results.

The Clusty folks explain:

Now on to Clustering 2.0!

Although clustering reveals the major topics in the top 200, 500, or more search results, there are always more topics than can be shown, without overloading the user with a very long list. There hasn’t been any better approach, until now.

With a single click, remix clustering answers the question: What other, subtler topics are there? It works by clustering again the same search results, but with an added input: ignore the topics that the user just saw. Typically, the user will then see new major topics that didn’t quite make the final cut at the last round, but may still be interesting.

One note of warning.  I've been using Ms. Dewey in my recent lessons on expanding your search toolbox, primarily as a strategy for proving that not all search tools are the same, and secondarily for engaging (and awakening) search-bored young men.  In my last demo search, the lovely Ms. Dewey fixed a cocktail for the group.  This was certainly not tragic for my seniors, but I think I'll go back to the chemistry search where the lovely librarian dons her lab coat to mix a toxic formula. 

Posted by Joyce Valenza on February 5, 2008 | Comments (1)