[Sigia-l] Findability

[Listera]

"Steven L. MacCall, Ph.D." wrote:
> Should I restrict my answer only to the consideration of documents that the
> Google retrieval sets points to? or should I...

You can stop at any level, because Google.com is a general-use retrieval
tool used by several hundred million people.

> When should people give up and stop clicking?

Not sure. But from the looks of it, people come back to Google again and
again and again.
 
> Further, it depends on situation and the definition of "satisfies" ..

How else could it be? Once again, Google.com is a general-use retrieval tool
for the masses.

> for example, in medicine (my area is medical IR) it would depend on whether
> the retrieved information satisfying the immediate clinical information need
> also ended up killing the patient!

I'm not sure how Google would fare if targeted specifically to and tuned
for, say, medical data. I bet pretty well.

Now, if you can afford to hire human IR experts for your niche (because you
cannot possibly cover the entire Google landscape) all power to you. This
being an impossibility for most cases, I'll take Google over nothing most
any time.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba