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On Jul 10, 2009, at 10:55 AM, Jason Stirnaman wrote: >> OpenPHI is a start-up company who is using open source software to >> harvest and index open access content for the purposes of creating >> useful indexes to medical information. For example, they have >> collected content from MEDLINE, Biomed, and other peer-reviewed sites >> to create a pretty comprehensive and competitive index called >> HealthLibrarian. >> >> [1] http://www.openphi.com/ >> [2] http://www.healthlibrarian.net/ > > Another interesting one is Mednar (who named this thing?) - a medical > open access federated search engine launched by fed search veterans > Deep > Web. > > http://mednar.com/mednar/ I think things like HealthLibrarian, Mednar, the previous work done by Index Data with open content, the cooperative alluded to by OCLC and Ebsco, and Serials Solutions Summon all represent a trend and/or opportunity for folks like ourselves. Identify (open access) content, harvest it, index it, and provide access to the index. If we were smart and cooperative, then we would create these indexes in some sort of sharable format (like a specifically structured Lucene index) allowing libraries to mix & match indexes to meet local needs. I will collect and index philosophy and theology materials. MIT will index computer science and mathematics. NCSU will collect engineering and agriculture. Etc. Once we get this process under our belts we could then go after the "closed" access content. By going through such a process we will educate ourselves, improve our skills, become more self-reliant, and save buckets of money in the long run. Not to mention provide value-added access to the materials needed by our patrons. At the same time, I also understand many of us would rather pay for the convenience of having this index packaged for us. If not, then there never would have been a market of Poole's original periodical index. -- Eric Lease Morgan University of Notre Dame (574) 631-8604