Today I was researching how to build a customized search engine, and I thought that it would be incredibly useful for users of the VRC Web Resources page to be able to conduct a federated search across all of the resources that we list. Here is the basic search engine that I designed in the Eurekster Swicki. I have included the first seven sites listed on the Web Resources for architecture.
Grab this swicki from eurekster.com
It seems to work by searching the sites you have listed first and then across the web generally. I also customized this search engine to search images and video content. We can post the swicki on the site and it is also listed in a directory with other swickis and a user can "grab" any swicki on the Eurekster Swicki site and put a link to it on their site. Users can also rate the sites found by searching the swicki and results that are "voted" for are rasied higher in the list of results. The owner of the swicki retains complete control over it.
Google Custom Search
As a point of contrast, I also created a custom search in Google using the same sites.
Comparison
Personally, I prefer the look of the Swicki. The tag cloud gives the Swicki more visual interest than the Google page, and it allows users to browse via one of these keywords, which give an indication of the topics included in the sites in the search engine. Users can also search on their own terms. Additionally, the Swicki is something the VRC could include directly on its Web site.
The main advantages of a Google custom search is that it has no limit to how many sites you can include in a customized search . The swicki has a limit of 50 sites. Users are also familiar with the Google interface and they may feel more comfortable using this interface.
In any case I think that we could use one of these formats to make it easier for users to find images on the web.
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