Hi Ben, Search engines are the topic of my doctoral dissertation. I would say that what kind of literature you find depends on what your question is; however, there is quite a bit of literature out there. Most of it is from an information retrieval (ie computer science) point of view, dicussing algorithms, indexing, and other technical topics. Some is from a user-interface point of view, testing the efficacy of different systems. A much smaller literature considers it from a social science point of view - people who are working (or have recently been working) in this area include Marcel Machill in Germany, Eszter Hargittai, Matt Hindman, Eric Goldman, Michael Zimmer, Concetta Stewart and Gisela Gil-Egui. Eszter is editing an issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication on the topic and Michael and Amanda Spink (who does large-scale user studies of search queries) are doing a book. Marcel has also organised a conference in Germany at the end of June on the topic. So things are happening that you can tap into. I highly recommend putting the term "search engine" into the ISI Web of Knowledge and downloading all the abstracts that come up if you want to make sense of the field as a whole. If you can define your topic a little more, I can give you specific references. Let me know. Regarding your questions. Library of material with no catalogue - if you are interested in the results you'll want to check out the statistical modelling and large-scale user tests which evaluate search engines. Self-reflection - I agree but it is possible to use alternative systems to access the academic literature, and if you are attempting a technical study then you will establish some kind of reference collection. Don't let it get you down. Posterity - well, although some things change, some stay the same. I just finished a draft chapter on search engine history which is definitely not ready for prime time, but might be worth a read if you're struggling to make sense of things. Several other chapters are available on my personal web site: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/vancouve/, and they all have bibliographies. Hope this is helpful, feel free to email me off-list. Elizabeth On 16 May 2006, at 07:24, Ben Peters wrote:
Hi,
I'm Ben Peters, a doctoral student at Columbia struggling with how to study search-engines. There's the problem of plenty: searching search- engines produces a library of material with no card catalog. There's the problem of self-reflection: studying search-engines through search-engines makes one pause to consider. Must one remove herself from the medium in order to study it (and other second-order issues)? But how else can one study a subject so young, except by using it to study itself? And there's the problem of posterity: search-engines seem to be evolving so quickly, with the web they index, that one struggles to step back from detailing a close search-engine genealogy to view the larger historical role search-engines may be having upon society. The species of search-engines is as important as their specifics manifestations.
Plus I'm sure there's at least a billion other problems I haven't happened upon yet.
Anyway, I've got a month to devote to this topic right now. Someone throw me an anchor, please: citations to institutions, people, books, articles, sites, or any related discussion would be hugely appreciated.
Pleasantly perplexed,
Ben
bjpeters [at] gmail.com bjp2108 [at] columbia.edu _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Elizabeth Van Couvering PhD Student Department of Media & Communications London School of Economics and Political Science http://personal.lse.ac.uk/vancouve/ e.j.van-couvering@lse.ac.uk