Ask Price, Not Jeeves

By Jay Datema -- Library Journal, 7/15/2006

Librarian Gary Price, who joined Ask.com in March (see “LJ Talks to Gary Price”), has been even more ubiquitous at library conferences than previously, appearing for his new employer at the SLA conference June 12 and at New York’s Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) June 7. Since it “booted the butler,” Price said the new Ask.com is investigating how to make its products more useful to librarians. Already, Ask.com has added some features for the reference desk, including Smart Answers, which offers an algorithmic engine that enables automatic search refinement. For example, searching for “dog” immediately brings up a definition, encyclopedia and other links, and a drop-down list of breeds. Other recent additions include an integrated image database, an All Music Guide search, and a new blog and news search built from the Bloglines database, which Ask owns. Price also challenged librarians to do better training and marketing of their own services.