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Search Quality, Content Farms, and Conspiracy Theories
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by Paula J. Hane
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The blogosphere and media outlets have been abuzz lately with reports of low-quality search results from the major search engines. It started in December 2010 with a New York Times, story about an unscrupulous merchant whose bad treatment of customers and negative reviews pushed the site to prominence in Google searches. In response to the flap that arose, Google quickly addressed this with changes to its search algorithms. Since then, there have been a New York Times expose of J.C. Penney's SEO practices ("The Dirty Little Secrets of Search") and Google's subsequent changes to its algorithm, Google's assertion that Microsoft Bing was copying Google search results, Google's banning of spam from low-quality sites and so-called "content farms," and even a conspiracy theory about which company was launching a negative publicity campaign against Google. This has indeed been a wild and crazy time.
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Preview of eBooks on EBSCOhost Now Available—Goodbye NetLibrary
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A year after acquiring NetLibrary from OCLC, EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) is releasing a preview of eBooks on EBSCOhost. The preview will allow librarians and end users to see how their library's collection of ebook titles from EBSCO/NetLibrary is being integrated into EBSCOhost, allowing for a more comprehensive and powerful search experience. Current customers will be able to explore their own ebook collections on EBSCOhost. The preview is designed to showcase the look and feel of ebooks on EBSCOhost and provide a live environment for librarians and users to test and trial the functionality.
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New Wolters Kluwer Law & Business WikiWatch Blog
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In the global instant-information culture, clients often want fast answers to news that potentially threatens their organizations—even if the accuracy of details and validity of information sources are in question. Now, decision makers can quickly turn to the new WikiWatch blog from Wolters Kluwer Law & Business to gain analysis of the potential legal and business consequences tied to the release of proprietary documents. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business is a provider of information and software solutions in key specialty areas for legal, risk, compliance, and business professionals.
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Cornell U Library Issues Statement on Journal Vendor Nondisclosures
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To promote openness and fairness among libraries licensing scholarly resources, Cornell University Library announced it will not enter into vendor contracts that require nondisclosure of pricing information or other information that does not constitute a trade secret. All new and renewed licenses submitted with nondisclosure clauses will not be signed but henceforth will be referred to the associate university librarian for scholarly resources and special collections for further negotiation.
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FOIA.gov: A Little Bit of Sunshine
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by Peggy Garvin
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To mark Sunshine Week each year, newspapers around the U.S. carry articles and editorials making the case for our national Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and local equivalents. You can peruse hundreds of these news items at the Sunshine Week website, just below the fold. The national Sunshine Week was founded by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and is funded in large part by the Knight Foundation. The Justice Department fittingly chose the FOIA-focused Sunshine Week (March 13-19) to announce its new website, FOIA.gov. FOIA.gov has educational information about FOIA for citizens and data on the federal government's performance in handling FOIA requests.
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If you are interested in sponsoring the NewsLink newsletter throughout the year, please contact account executive LaShawn Fugate for details: lashawn@infotoday.com.
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