Week 10 Readings - Shreves Article

After finishing this article it occurred to me that the relationship between data providers and service providers using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting has the same pattern as that of search engine companies and every day Internet users. Both are trying to find the right way to index content and provide tools for users to find the appropriate content. I think there is one important difference though; the OAI community relationship are clearly mutually desired and collaborative whereas the search engine to user relationship is desired but not usually collaborative and sometimes adversarial. In the search engine world, search engine providers are often fighting off content providers whose sites clearly won't meet most search queries. OAI providers are working to a "customized
" set of standards to most closely meet their constituents' needs. The search engine providers are operating in a more or less standard less environment--they may have the tougher job!