SWICKI : a custom search portal that you easily design and put on your blog or site. "Swickis" are defined as online applications that can " grow and serve a community of enthusiasts around a particular topic." It is collaborative with others who may be using your search terms, so it grows. And anyone can "grab" it and use it, too. The one at left was made by choosing search terms you see in the tag cloud, related to art, design, and color in libraries. It pulls in all sorts of results, some relevant and surprising, some less so. With a little work I can make it better. With proper input of terms in the first place, I think it could become quite powerful. I like the tag cloud feature and the compact size. One feels that one has really created something!
If you were getting lots of traffic to your site, as the library does, a feature like this could be customized for all sorts of special events (Spring Training for example), or just Winter Visitors Information, Summer travel, School topics at certain times of the year. The Kids or Teens part of the site could have a swicki designed to aid with research, maybe. Would this be oversimplifying the research process? I guess it would depend on the quality of the results, because really good results would do a better job of preparing the student and save them a lot of wasted time flailing around through bad results.
I can see working out a swicki for the Call Center that is programmed, so to speak, to pull in results from trusted sources and also to respond to new sources added by others. . If a really well informed person designed one, a swicki could be a really useful tool to narrow down the number of search results. It is way better than a Pathfinder, but still “only as good as the expert who has designed it.” I can see creating custom swickis for patrons or teaching people how to make their own. Maybe there would be a way to "install" every patron's swicki where they log into "My Account."
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