Hi Mike

Yeah I agree . . . we use a Google Coop for our site search (but NOT our collection search – although it also can work as a way into our objects of course!). See it at http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/search/ (it is also in our persistent footer)

And we should have a statewide cross-institutional prototype of a combination Google Enterprise + OAI + Opensearch model working in the next 6 months. I might have a beta up before Xmas.

The problem that I’ve found with Google Coop is the inability to do the kind of deep data mining that we do on our (self built) OPAC search. Effectively that data value goes to Google (and doesn’t come back to us).

There is the other problem that I noticed when I was over in the UK, that SEO seems to still be a ‘mystical thing’ that hasn’t been applied properly to quite a lot of museums’ collections . . .

Seb