A new partnership between IU and ChaCha, an Indiana company that is creating a new and more focused way of providing Internet searches, will incorporate the collective knowledge and experience of the university's library and information technology staff.  

Sophisticated machine-based search combines with skilled human guides who can quickly bring focus and precision to the search product.

"Great universities of the 21st century will master and integrate digital information as an essential part of research and learning," McRobbie says. "Our alliance with ChaCha creates a strong and capable partnership to research these digital frontiers and to develop leading tools for the IU community."

It will enable IU and ChaCha to develop a better understanding of how guided search can best serve the complex needs of students, faculty and academic researchers. The name ChaCha comes from "cha," the Chinese word for search.

By combining machine-based searches with input from human guides, ChaCha is able to offer users the ability to receive instant results, just like a traditional search engine, but the guides help the user focus on relevant information and eliminate unwanted material.

IU librarians, information technology staff and others will serve as guides, available to help the IU community conduct searches through a live instant message chat interface, identify exactly what information the user is seeking, refine the search for the user and then display only the most relevant results.

"ChaCha will offer a new platform to integrate librarians' expertise into the search and learning process," said Patricia Steele, Ruth Lilly Interim Dean of University Libraries. "We have a long history of providing trustworthy and reliable information to people who seek it from us. This platform will now help us push our expertise outside the walls of the library to where people are working."

Librarians have always valued the back-and-forth exchange that ChaCha emphasizes. A librarian's first interaction with a patron is the start of a dialogue. Librarians answer questions. They also ask questions to refine a query, narrow a topic, and often help the questioner clarify research needs.

Read the IU news announcement.