Thanks! 
Also thanks for the human search engine answers via irc.  
-skome

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 6:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Code4Lib Community google custom search

So I was in #code4lib, and skome asked about ideas for library hours. 
And I recalled that there have been at least two articles in the C4L Journal on this topic, so suggested them.

Then I realized that there's enough body of work in the Journal to be worth searching there whenever you have an "ideas for dealing with X" 
question. You might not find anything, but I think there's enough chance you will, illustrated by that encounter with skome.

Then I realized it's not just the journal -- what about a Google Custom Search that searches over the Journal, the Code4Lib wiki, the Code4Lib website, and perhaps most interestinly -- all the sites listed in Planet Code4Lib.

Then I made it happen. Cause it seemed interesting and I'm a perfectionist, I even set things up so a cronjob automatically syncs the list of sites in the Planet with the Google custom search every night.

The Planet stuff ends up potentially being a lot of noise -- I tried to custom 'boost' stuff from the Journal, but I'm not sure it worked. But I did configure things with facet-like limits including a "just the planet" limit, if you do want that. But even though it's sometimes a lot of noise, it's also potentially the most interesting/useful part of the search, otherwise it'd pretty much just be a Journal search, but now it includes a bunch of people's blogs, as well as other sites deemed of interest to Code4Lib community (including a couple other open source library tech journals) -- without any extra curatorial work, just using the list already compiled for the Planet.

I'm curious what people think of it. Try some searches for library tech questions or information and see how good your results are. If people find this useful, I'll try to include it on the main code4lib.org webpage in some prominent place, spruce up the look and feel etc. (Or try to draft someone else to do that, I think my time to work on this might be _just_ about up after staying until 9.30 hacking on this cause it seemed cool).

http://www.code4lib.org/custom_search/search_form.html