Building a Better Repository Search

One interesting Web 2.0 company is Rollyo. It’s a site that allows you to roll your own search engine. Rollyo’s blurb says you can “Create and share custom search engines using only the sources you trust with Rollyo!”
They’ve cleverly gotten a few celebrities to create Rollyo searches. We would find the library sector stuff more interesting and there appear to be a few already.
You can see an example of how it works for libraries by trying Les Carr’s UK Research search engine that provides results from a hand-selected list of sites. This one searches about two dozen UK scholarly repositories.
There is a whole toolbox to try:
“Add Rollyo to your Firefox Toolbar
The world’s greatest browser just got better….
Put a Rollyo Searchbox on your site
Simply cut and paste and have visitors to your site
searching your searchrolls.
Create Searchrolls with your Bookmarks
Upload your bookmarks to automatically create searchrolls
from the sites you already have saved.
Send or Directly Link to a Searchroll
Email a Searchroll to a friend or directly link to
a Searchroll for bookmarking or use on your site or blog.
Search from your desktop with our Rollyo Widget
For OSX or Windows, you can search your rolls from
the comfort of your own desktop”
It’s still beta but it’s worth a look.
Stephen