redlightgreen

April 27, 2005 1:09 AM

This is goodFrom RLG, an international not-for-profit organization of libraries, museums, and other research institutions, comes this incredibly useful research tool. Start with as vague a query as you like, it'll provide an ordered list of search limiters to help you zero in on the resources you need in a far more organic and rapid fashion than similar tools I've seen. An invaluable resource for students, librarians, and the curious.
posted by Grod (10 comments total)

vague query: web usability older adult users
using RedLightGreen
using Google Scholar
posted by Pigpen at 1:55 AM on April 27, 2005

Pigpen, it searches (it claims) 120 million books. Google Scholar searches journal articles. Both are useful, I think. Try "Hawthorne" or "toast" or "sex among primates."
posted by Grod at 3:01 AM on April 27, 2005

This is good (despite the fact that they seem to have disabled the back button). Thanks.
posted by TimothyMason at 3:16 AM on April 27, 2005

One of the people involved in this project has a blog.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 5:30 AM on April 27, 2005

Also from RLR, trove.net. Pretty neat, really.
posted by Grod at 5:58 AM on April 27, 2005

Wow, thanks. This looks really useful.
posted by gd779 at 9:20 AM on April 27, 2005

Uhm...man, am I disappointed. I've been using RedLightGreen for well over a year now...I'm surprised that it hadn't hit MeFI sooner.

My faith is shattered...
posted by aldus_manutius at 3:04 PM on April 27, 2005

It says it finds the most "important resource".. how are the listings ordered, is there any preference to what is more important than others? It seems to work best on narrow subjects, broad subjects don't provide much guidance.
posted by stbalbach at 5:41 PM on April 27, 2005

Lotta research in the area of "toast", is there?
: )
posted by spock at 9:29 PM on April 27, 2005

It finds the most "important resource" mainly by how many libraries have the item in their collection, going on the theory that within any subject, libraries will try to buy as many of the important books as they can afford. This will work more on a narrow subject, but you can narrow your search using the subjects listed on the left.

There's also a firefox search plugin available.
posted by teaperson at 7:06 PM on April 28, 2005