Here is a real find for librarians and those of us obsessed by all things search: The Informed Librarian Online. Conflict of interest statement here upfront here: the nice editor saw an article I just had published in Computers in Libraries and has asked me to write an article for The Informed Librarian Online. Having now visited the latter’s site and examined its free content (I will get into its fee-only service later in this review), I am even more flattered to be invited to do so—there are some real jewels in this treasure trove. For instance, on its home page there is access to the full text academic articles of a cornucopia of search, digital librarianship and information science matters. I have just printed out for later reading the paper, “Web Search Efficacy: Definition and Implementation”, by Yazdan Mansourian in Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 60, Issue 4. The paper discusses the differences between the concepts of Web search performance and Web search efficiency. Useful reading for search professionals, not just academics. And I would never have found that article but for The Informed Librarian Online—which also features links to the journals themselves at their respective publishers’ sites. That is very helpful—I am a sucker for print subscriptions of library and Internet-related periodicals and it such a pleasure to learn about a journal new to one. Very smart of Haworth and Emerald to hook up with The Informed Librarian Online and to provide free downloads of content there. I am in library school and if you hook me now with content, you have me as a paid subscriber for life. For instance, I had never heard of this journal: http://info.emeraldinsight.com/products/journals/journals.htm?id=ap and might never have heard of it if The Informed Librarian Online hadn’t featured in its Editor’s Picks the Mansourian paper cited above. The Informed Librarian Online really does live up to its name. If you are considering going to library school or are simply a manager in any setting that requires competence in basic search skills by your staff, check out the articles such as “IT Competence for All: Propel Your Staff to New Heights”, by Linda L. Eells and Janice M. Jaguszewski in Technical Services Quarterly, Vol. 25 No.4—yet another outstanding, real-world helpful article downloadable at The Informed Librarian Online.And business managers—don’t be scared off by the word “librarian,” in the name of The Informed Librarian Online. There is good, substantive reading here for human resource professionals, headhunters, MBA students and anyone who has to function in the information economy—which is now basically the whole of the worldwide white collar workforce. Check out, for instance, “LinkedIn - A User’s Perspective”, by David Thew in Business Information Review, Vol. 25, No. 2. Kudos to Sage Publications for making that article available. If I were an academic/scitech publisher (hello, Elsevier and Springer—are you there?), I would immediately approach The Informed Librarian Online to get some of my business-related, information science and librarianship content onto the site. I spend hours in Web sites and this is by far one of the most content-rich, easily navigable, nicely laid out, intellectually engaging and useful I have come across in terms of leading me as a consumer to things I might actually shell out some money for (like journal subscriptions).
And that is just the free stuff on this site. I tried out the premium service, ILOSearch and liked that (a little clunky, but you can’t have everything). It enables users to access results from some of the more notable blogs and sites on search and other Internet topics (e.g., Search Day, ResearchBuzz, D-Lib Magazine) by date and by hits and to narrow your search to periodicals in specific industries or specialties (e.g., Information Industry). It would be great if more digital content and search-related sites were listed. If I were an information science content producer (whether a blogger or a large publisher), I would contact The Informed Librarian Online and try to get my stuff into ILOSearch. That would be a good way to reach librarians who prefer a somewhat formal search tool such as ILOSearch to the wild world of blog search. Reach them where they live—via the subscriber-only parts of great sites such as The Informed Librarian Online.By Hope Leman
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