The following post was written by my law librarian colleague, Bev Butula:
A couple of weeks ago, I discussed the hakia search engine on my blog for the Wisconsin Law Journal. If you are not familiar with this engine, it uses semantic search technology. They look for quality results, recognizing that the most credible sites might not be the most popular. Their website indicates that a quality result needs to satisfy “three criteria simultaneously: It (1) comes from credible sources (verticals) recommended by librarians, (2) is the most recent information available, and (3) is absolutely relevant to the query.” For popular queries, the search results are categorized, and presented in an easy to read fashion.
Shortly after my post, I had the pleasure of speaking with Melek Pulatkonak, their CEO and Farrah Hamid, the Communications Coordinator. During this conversation, they discussed their goals for hakia. Currently, they have an established vertical for medical searches having included the Medical Library Association’s top credible web sites into their database.
Their next goal is to move to a legal vertical. They want to use the collective knowledge of law librarians to enhance the users search experience. As a result, they have created a submission tool to assist in this process. They ask that suggested sites have some editorial review, there is no commercial bias, that the site remains current, and has source authenticity. A recent press release outlines the process and their expectations. As an added bonus, anyone submitting an eligible website will be entered into a drawing.
They are also reviewing established websites such as the Librarians’ Internet Index and Cornell’s Legal Information Institute to improve this evolving process.